Tag Archive for: Juliana Aragon Fatula

Banned Books and Tip Lines to Snitch on Teachers by Juliana Aragón Fatula

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1990’s Cast from Su Teatro Intro to Chicano History 101 by Anthony J. Garcia 

Dear Reader, 

I woke at 4:30 a.m. and realized that I’m losing my mind. I thought about the state of the country and I began to cry and laugh simultaneously. I wondered if I’d gone insane to be able to laugh about the news that Governors were not only banning books but creating tip lines for parents to call in to report/snitch on teachers teaching history, culture, art, music, etc. that offends their students by revealing the atrocities perpetrated against women, people of color, religions, gender fluidity, whatever. I began to cry again at the absurdity of our nation and the political turmoil that surrounds us because the left and right are strangling each other with hate against anything they don’t like. 

I watched last night’s DVR recording of my favorite journalist, Ari Melber, and his guest the world renowned astrophysicist, Neil Degrasse Tyson. I love them both. I watched the interview and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Neil was speechless several times because the clips that Ari showed him from the new blockbuster movie, Don’t Look Up, showed Meryl Streep as the President of the U.S. telling her supporters lies. They believed her lies instead of the scientists who were telling the world that an asteroid was hurling towards Earth and would destroy everyone and everything much like the extinction of the dinosaurs. He laughed at the clips but explained that it was frightening because it paralleled what the previous leader of the U.S. had done by lying to the world and claiming that he had won the election and lying about the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th saying it was a peaceful protest of patriots. wtf.

I listened to the two men, who I respect, talk about this movie that explained how we are headed for doomsday because SCIENCE and facts/truth no longer matter to people. I wondered what the fudgecicle happened to people to make them so easily duped. 

I had a good cry and remembered that books were being banned because they were teaching students to open their eyes and learn about how this country was stolen, how indigenous people were slaughtered, how Africans were kidnapped, and made to work for those same people who slaughtered the indigenous and forced to work as slaves and make those murderers rich. Students’ books and libraries are being listed as books to ban because they tell the truth about how this country came into being and how people were beaten, hung, murdered, raped, humiliated because they were other. LGBTQ books would be banned, books written by people of color about their culture would be banned, religious books would be banned if they didn’t teach Christianity. I threw up a little in my mouth and began to sob. 

I must have cried, laughed, puked, shat, farted, broke into hysterics for hours. Then I drug myself off the bathroom floor and began to write this post. My books would be banned because I dared to write poetry about drug addiction, child molestation, rape, genocide, alcoholism, cultural appropriation, religious persecution. I felt sick again and dragged myself back into the bathroom to purge the negativity out of my soul and watch it swirl down the toilet.

I for an instant thought, I don’t want to live in a world where books are banned and then I realized that if I flushed myself down the toilet and died nothing would change and THEY would win. I made a pact with myself that I would keep writing my stories, poems, plays, novels, essays and telling my truth because the truth matters. And I know that when I was teaching I would have been one of those teachers that was snitched on the tip line for teaching the truth/science/facts/history/world culture/world peace because the haters gonna’ hate and the only way to fight them is with the truth, and books that are banned are the ones the students need to read. FREEDOM.

Juliana Aragón Fatula’s ancestors indigenous to Aztlan, migrated from New Mexico to Southern Colorado. In 2022 she was awarded the title of Corn Mother for the Return of the Corn Mothers Project funded by the Colorado Folk Arts Council, Chicano Humanities Arts Council, Metropolitan State University of Denver and US Bank. She is the author of The Road I Ride Bleeds, Crazy Chicana in Catholic City, and Red Canyon Falling on Churches (winner of the High Plains Book Award in 2016.) She has been a Macondista since 2011, was a Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities ambassador and Director of Creative Writing for las mujeres unidas de CSU Pueblo and she conducted writing workshops for Colorado Writers in the Schools K-12, Bridging Borders, Cesar Chavez Academy, and Cañon City Middle School. She performed in the nineties with Su Teatro Cultural Performing Arts Center and after Operation Desert Storm, she toured in the Persian Gulf for the Department of Defense with the Latin Locomotions. She is shopping her first mystery, The Colorado Sisters, for a publisher. She believes in the power of education to change lives.

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Bridging Borders 2017

Pueblo,
Colorado, 

by Juliana Aragón Fatula


Bridging Borders 2017 Writing Workshop
at Rawlings Library, Pueblo, CO.

The Stiletto Gang represents women who are
mystery writers; I haven’t published my first mystery novel, I am writing my
first manuscript. I switched genres from poetry to follow my dream of writing a
mystery.

Today, I’d like to focus on a project I’ve
participated in the past three years. Bridging Borders is a leadership program
for young women and empowers them with skills, builds confidence, teamwork,
entrepreneurship. The future of our country falls in their hands and I’m proud
to be a mentor and to assist the teens with writing skills through my writing
workshops at the Rawlings Library.

The El Pueblo History Museum and the
Department of Social Services sponsors the teens and provides excellent
mentors. I happen to be one of the mentors being honored this year at a banquet
to celebrate the year 2017 and the Bridging Borders Graduates: Anysha, Cheyene,
Elian, Reigna, Zoe, Alyssa, Jakiah, Jaylee, Alex, Jaden, Elena, Sophia, Amaya,
Taylor, Marisol, Rhyia, Iliana, Chloe, Anika, Mayala. I know these young ladies
will become future leaders, some even political leaders and I’m very proud to
have been a part of Bridging Borders.

When I met the first-year participants I
didn’t know what to expect. What I found that day: writers, poets, confident,
intelligent, creative, high-level thinkers. The second year I met young ladies
who taught me more than I taught them. They were so welcoming and eager to
learn. I kept in touch with a couple of incredible ladies and followed them on
their path to freshman college.


This
year, the third year of my involvement, the number of ladies grew: I met a
larger group than in the previous years. I met ladies ready for whatever I
threw at them. They met my challenges and exceeded my hopes for a productive
writing workshop. I asked for volunteers and they volunteered. I asked for million-dollar
words and they impressed me with their vocabulary; they are young,
at-risk, and marginalized by society.

I asked them to write for five minutes.
Five minutes later they volunteered to share their poem with the group and impressed
me again with their eloquence, command of the stage, their confidence in their
writing. I cried tears of happiness. I laughed with them and hugged them and
told them how proud I am of them.  My day
was spent surrounded by young leaders who will make a difference in this
country and change the way we treat women in society.

They asked questions about writing and I
beamed with joy at their enthusiasm. In my experiences of teaching and
conducting writing workshops with teenagers I’ve witnessed these teens have a
lot to say; they are writing from their hearts about their truth: the bullying,
suicide, abandonment, but also about soccer, dance, music, love, and hope.

While they wrote, I circulated the room
and observed their hands and eyes. They were not given writing prompts other
than to write without limitations about anything but to make it memorable; they
wrote incredible poems and left me with their dreams, fears, hopes, and
questions about their world in the twenty-first century.

My first book of poetry, Crazy Chicana in Catholic City, juliana-aragon-fatula bowerhousebooks was
provided for them by their sponsors and if they weren’t busy writing; they were
busy reading my book. The delight I felt when I watched them write for five
minutes non-stop and read through the table of contents in my book gave me a
sensation of being part of something. Developing the minds of these young
ladies with the power of words and meaning in their lives brought me tremendous
joy, honor, pride, and humility.

This has been one of the most satisfying
experiences of my sixty years; I’ve had many journeys, but to share with these
young leaders my past: a teenage pregnant high-school-drop out who went on to be
the first in my family to graduate college, write and publish books, teach,
tour with the Department of Defense entertaining the men and women in the
military, travel the world, perform on stages across the country, and to end up
in Southern Colorado the place of my ancestors, validated I have fulfilled my
destiny to work with at-risk-youth and empower them to express themselves with
spoken and written word.

They give me hope and hope is all we can
ask for in this time of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, misogyny, and homophobia.
Have I left anyone out? This country needs new leaders and I know these young
ladies will bring it. How fortunate for us that they have been empowered to
teach us what women contribute to society and how they mold the next generation
of leaders. I learned about writing workshops from my mentor, Sandra Cisneros and The Macondo Foundation. I teach what I learn to the future writers of diversity: LGBTQ, and ethnic writers from the nation


Macondo Foundation Writing Workshop San Antonio, TX 

Founded in 1995 Mission:
The Macondo Writers Workshop is an association
of socially-engaged writers united to advance
creativity, foster generosity, and honor community.
Sandra Cisneros and Laurie Ann Guerrero
at Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, San Antonio

Macondistas

Sandra Cisneros and Juliana at Rawlings Library

My Chicana Garden Juliana Aragón Fatula, author of Crazy Chicana in Catholic City, Red Canyon Falling On Churches, and The Road I Ride Bleeds.

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I’m home enjoying the hot gardening days of July; my back
yard is an oasis. Some call it the Garden of Eden.  I call it my Chicana Garden. I sit in my
sunroom/moon room and watch the birds as they dive bomb the grasshoppers. I
have a clothes line next to one of the birdhouses.
A couple of bluebirds moved in this spring and
they are busy feeding their young. When I hang laundry, the male attacks me.
The female watches and guards the nest; the male hunts for food. We feed the
birds and have two birdfeeders, but I’ve never seen the bluebirds eat there;
they prefer to keep to themselves and prefer bugs, I guess.
I prefer to keep to myself too, I guess. I like
it when my husband leaves for hunting trips and goes in the high country to
find elk. He loves hunting. I love reading and writing.
So sometimes, I go away and leave home to
write. I’ve stayed a weekend at a hotel in el valle and just written until I
dropped. I’ve gone to writing conferences and workshops where my only job is to
attend seminars by excellent master writers and to finish my manuscript.  
Some nights I toss and turn until I give up and
sit down to write. I’m happiest when I’m allowed to write or read and no one
bothers me. I quit answering my phone, texts, emails and concentrated on
writing. I forgot to pay bills, I missed dentist appointments and alienated
myself from my family and friends. I had to train them to leave a message if it’s
important. They no longer pop in unexpected, expecting me to serve coffee and
cookies. I meet them at the door and tell them I’m working.
My son says I’ve forgotten about him; not true.
But he has forgiven me for neglecting to keep in touch. He’s going on 44 years
old this year and I’m turning 60 next April. My life has been about him. Now it’s
about me. Not my husband, not my son, not my mom, friends, me. Me. Me. Me.
I went to college in 2004. Graduated in 2008. I
wrote and published two books of poetry and a chapbook since then. I’ve written
my memoirs, Gathering Momentum and
put it away for the time being. It was kind of depressing revisiting all of my
haunts and ghosts. I decided to do what I love. I’m writing my first murder
mystery.
At first, I was consumed. I did my first and
probably last NANOWRIMO, national novel writing in a month, in November last
year and jumpstarted my manuscript. I had to write 50,000 words or more in 30
days. I wrote morning, night, day, I wrote in my head while I was in the
shower, while I was doing the laundry, cooking dinner, I wrote nonstop. I
burned out. I had to take a break. So I began working on another project, my
One Woman Show.
My idea is that if I just keep writing, I’ll
retain my sanity. So much for that idea. I’ve gone mad several times in my
drive to finish projects. But I finish. I am so close to finishing my novel, it
hurts. I want to just go away and write and finish the story. 
So, I started printing sections and came up
with seven sections in my manuscript. I revised part I, the intro to the
characters, Atlanta, the Love Shack, the Owl Cigar Store, the crime scene, the
homicide division, and it went quickly.
I’m working on section II, the investigation.
This is where all of those nights reading mysteries and nights watching CSI
comes in play. I had no idea that I have such a devious mind. I love leaving
clues, dropping red herrings, and solving crimes.
I researched prostitution, genocide, murder. I
enlisted the help of my transgender friends to guide me on the intricacies of
creating a realistic character that was a transgender woman. I contacted a
couple of friends from high school. One a detective, the other a criminal
investigator for their expertise. I listened to hours of music and used it to
motivate me. I went through a couple of printers and laptops.
The result of my hard work is that now I have a
rough draft to polish. When I read through to revise and edit, I say to myself,
“Who is a writer? Huh? Who has three books of poetry published? Huh? Me, that’s
who.” Then I say, “This isn’t bad, but you don’t want it to be good; you want
it to be great.”
My mentor Sandra Cisneros gives lots of great
advice. She told me, tell great stories. She holds me to a higher standard than
I had for myself. I thought I could skate being a good writer. Now, I know, I
have to be a great writer, or why bother. I don’t want to be famous. I just
want to die someday knowing I gave my best. I want to live forever in my words.

Juliana Aragon Fatula Stands with Standing Rock

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Save the Water Save the People

Here is my news: I’ve been selected as a finalist in the High Plains Book Award for Poetry in Billings, Montana. I’m so excited for the road trip. I’ve never been to Montana.

I want to win, of course, claro que si! However, I’m a finalist! I’m thrilled to be one of a handful of regional poets who will battle for the prize.

We should have a dance off and whoever dances the longest and the best, wins. I’d win that contest for sure. I love to dance. I love to sing. I love to stand on stage and quote Shakespeare.

Why can’t I ever play Hamlet. Why do I get to play the maid, the cook, the Indian, the Mexican, the wino, the drug dealer, the homeless woman, the homeless man. Why do directors cast me as the drug addicted, pregnant single parent teenager?

I accepted those roles because I was so thrilled to be doing what I love and getting paid to perform. However, in 1995 that all changed. I toured the world with my friends and we performed for the Department of Defense in los azores, Sicily, diego Garcia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Three Denver, Colorado Chicanos: the Latin Locomotions arrived in Kuwait and shuffled to the exit. We though someone in uniform would be at the airport to collect us, our luggage, and Manuel’s guitars.

The base sent a woman in civilian clothing to retrieve us. She searched the crowd for three Chicagoans. Typo, easy mistake, who knows but we missed our ride.

We suddenly felt panicky. The airport security were dressed in the traditional white from top to bottom.  They were packing M-16s. They looked like Chicanos. We smiled. They remained stoic.

We didn’t speak Arab, we had no Arab money, no telephone number for the base.

We searched for an airport employee who spoke English. We ran into a man who smiled when he saw us. He smiled from ear to ear. He said, “Hello.”

We said, “Help! Please?”

He took us to his office, he gave us water and fruit, and asked us where we were from. He recognized that we were Chicano, not Chicagoans, or Arabs. When we told him we were from Colorado. He slapped his knee and said, “I graduated from Ft. Collins Colorado State University!” He asked what our plans were in Kuwait.

When we told him we were entertainers. We told him we were visiting for Hispanic Awareness month in October and we were performing on base the next day. He became animated and waving his hands in the air. I saw Chicano Theatre in Ft. Collins, Denver, and Pueblo. I loved it. Can you sing some songs for us.

By then the entire office surrounded us and we had our first audience. We called our agent in Denver. She called the base and sent a ride to pick us up.

We said good bye to our new friends and were never so happy to arrive on base and settle in for the night. We slept in the barracks with the soldiers; the showers and toilets were down the walk, five barracks down the walk.

I’ve had some interesting experiences and traveled from the mountains of Colorado to the volcanos in Sicily, to the Mediterranean, to the Persian Gulf and to the Indian Ocean. I learned about other cultures, languages, food, and I experienced the joy of giving back to the men and women who protect us back in the states.

Everywhere we travelled and performed the locals would attend even if they didn’t speak English they enjoyed the music and dancing.

The soldiers both men and women were welcoming, appreciative, and very friendly. We were taken on short site seeing trips during the day and performed every night we weren’t travelling. We had no crew, no techies, nada. The soldiers were our crew. The men and women offered to carry speakers, guitar cases, and stayed to strike after the show.

I learned about the Arabs and the Persians, and Sicilians, and the Portuguese, and the natives of Madagascar. And what I learned is that music is the language that communicates, peace, love, understanding, soul, and fun. The soldiers and the locals danced at our performances. And when we had a night off, they took us dancing in their clubs. I met merchant sailors and Brits in Diego Garcia and fought off their drunken fumbles to get me to dance with them. But never did anyone do anything inappropriate. 

We met people from all over the U.S. but we also met Chicanos from Denver, Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Alamosa, and they were our biggest fans and wanted to thank us for singing corridos and telling cuentos about their people. Hispanic Awareness Month in the military in 1995 during peace time.

Today, we have someone who wants to deport people of color, ban Muslims, and wants to use Nuclear Weapons, water boarding torture and stop and frisk. He wants to divide our country. I say, we unite and show him we are the United States, not the Divided and segregated United States.

Please, hug your neighbor, kiss your children, help your coworkers and begin to see people, human beings, souls.  The differences between cultures makes us interesting, unique, educational. Why fear the unknown? Embrace our otherness.

Don’t build walls and plow through the reservations of the Standing Rock Sioux, stop hating, stop fearing, stop. Just stop and listen to Muslims, Catholics, Atheists, Brown people, Asians, African Americans and learn from one another. And when they tell you what offends them, tell them you didn’t know and apologize.

Clicking Our Heels – Our Summer Reading and What We Read Again and Again

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The Stiletto
Gang are all writers, but we also enjoy a good read. In fact, we have
summer reads and books we simply enjoy reading again and again. We thought you
might be interested in both our summer and comfort reading.
Marilyn Meredith: I love to read
anything by William Kent Krueger any time of the year – but there are so many
others, especially female mystery authors. I’ve read Gone With the Wind several times – though I must admit I skipped
over some of the parts about the Civil War. At my age, I can reread about
anything and it seems new.
Paffi Flood: Stephen King. It’s great
to read horror stories late into the night, because the sun is out J.
I was amazed how timeless Salem’s Lot
by Stephen King was. Although it was originally released in 1975, when I
re-read it in 2014, the cadence, the language seemed so contemporary. Of
course, there were the references to 8-track tapes and car carburetors, and
some things from the ‘70s.
Jennae M. Phillippe: I find favorites
so hard to pick! I have more reading time in summer and usually catch up on the
recommendations my friends have sent me over the year. Recent ones that stand
out are Gail Carriger (Steampunk fantasy action romance), Anne Mendel (humorous
post-apocalyptic), and James S.A. Corey (Science fiction). If you have
recommendations, send them my way! I love to revisit my old favorites,
particularly the ones from my childhood, like the entire The Song of the Lioness series from Tamora Pierce, or the Anne of Green Gables books from L.M.
Montgomery. There is something about reading books from your childhood that
makes you feel like a kid again.
Dru Ann Love: I don’t have seasonal
authors. I read all year round and whoever I’m reading at the time becomes a
favorite, especially if their book is part of a series. Naked in Death by J.D. Robb is the only book that I have re-read
multiple times and each time I discover something I missed the first go-round
and fall in love with Eve and Roark all over again.
Sparkle Abbey: Some of our favorite
summer reads are Laura Levine, Carolyn Hart, and when we’re looking for
something a little darker, Lisa Gardner. We’ve both re-read Laura Levine books
occasionally simply because they’re such great escapes. And sometimes you need
to escape! LOL.
Linda Rodriguez: I re-read many books. I’ve
read Shakespeare, the King James Bible,
most of Dickens, Austen, Trollope, and Virginia Woolf many times. I re-read
many favorite poets again and again. I’ve re-read everything Agatha Christie
and Dorothy Sayers (at least, her mysteries) so many times I couldn’t begin to
count.
Bethany Maines: I usually try and read
something fluffy in the summer. I’ll re-read a Terry Pratchett (British humor)
or pick up an L.J. Wilson (sexy romance). The
Blue Castle by LM Montgomery – I loved it as a teenager and even more as an
adult. The idea of casting aside inhibitions to pursue the life you want is a
message that is always good to hear.
Juliana Aragon Fatula: Manuel Ramos,
Mario Acevado, and High Times Marijuana
for Everybody by Elise McDonough, Denise Chavez. The first time I read Indian Killer by Sherman Alexie, I tore
through it with vigor because I wanted to know who did it. The second time I
went through, took notes, marked pages to review, and savored the writing. It
was once for pleasure and twice for writing style. I re-read it because I
switched genres from poetry to mystery.
Kay Kendall: There is no seasonal
difference in my reading habits. For me it is mysteries, every day, all the
time. Or whatever the broadest term is that includes suspense, spy novels, and
the occasional thriller. I am not fond of police procedurals or books featuring
serial killers. Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte. It has everything. Historic sweep, feisty heroine, suspense,
a touch of Gothic horror, and Mr. Rochester. Each time I have reread Jane Eyre, I marvel at its depth. It
holds up very well. I first read it as a young teen so of course I understand
some of its underpinnings better now.

Debra H. Goldstein: Summers are meant
for catching up on light mysteries, biographies, and literature. This summer’s
books ranged from The Nightingale to
Sisters in Law (Ruth Bader Ginsburg
and Sandra Day O’Connor) to the new Harry
Potter. I’m not a big re-reader but there are a few I often refer to for
style or concept like Edna Ferber’s
Giant, Agatha Christie’s books, or anything I think might incorporate a
style or an idea I’m thinking about.

Clicking Our Heels – What We Hate Most About Computers

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Clicking Our Heels –
What We Hate Most About Computers

I’ve had that kind
of day! (Debra speaking) My computer
ate my words written for the day before deciding frozen was the position it
would like to be in. Even though I normally love computers, today, I asked my
fellow Stiletto Gang members “What they
hate most about computers?” Here’s what they said:
Dru Ann Love: The
updates and how it messes with my settings.
Bethany Maines:
The thing I hate most about computers is that I can’t punch them. I want to
start a business selling nerf computer replicas that come with their own
baseball bat.
Juliana Aragon Fatula:
They aren’t faithful. I have a relationship with a new computer on average
about once a year and they are unfaithful and I have to move on and go with a
younger, newer model. Sometimes I hate the fact that they make me want to pick
them p and throw them out the window or at the very least take a stiletto to
the screen.

Kay Kendall: Just
when I get used to and comfy with a program, the company that produces it
changes it radically, then all the PCs move to favoring that, and then I have
to learn the new program. It is invariably trickier and just does more things
that I don’t really need. Annoying!


Jennae M. Phillippe:
The update cycle. I’ll be fresh and excited to start working on a project, turn
on the computer, and have to wait like 20 minutes for the thing to update. Or
worse, I’ll be in mid-project which it does one of those mandatory shut down
thingies. Totally throws me off.


Linda Rodriguez:
I hate that some programs (I’m looking straight at you, Microsoft Word) try to
make decisions for me that I want to make for myself.
Paffi Flood:
Nothing, now that I have an Apple J.


Paula Benson: That computers understand so many things intuitively, except how to fulfill my needs.
Marilyn Meredith:
What I hate most about computers is what I have to learn how to do something
new – which seems to happen too often.

Sparkle Abbey: We
don’t know what we do without computers. We work on them, we write on them and
we use them to keep in touch with each other. We both think we’re pretty
computer savvy, but there have been a couple of times when the computer has
eaten a work in progress or not saved it correctly. That’s frustrating!