Saturday, December 19, 2015

Winners of 2015 Troncoso Reading Prizes

This week the staff of the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library and I presented the inaugural winners of the Troncoso Reading Prizes with certificates of achievement, gift cards from Barnes Noble, and gift bags from the El Paso Public Library.

The winners also received a signed copy of one of my books, and we read their individual essays on their favorite books. Here are some pictures with parents, teachers, and even principals who attended the event at the library. I can't wait to do it again next year.

Winners of 2015 Troncoso Reading Prizes:

9-12th grade category: 1st Place: Alejandra Mendoza, Del Valle High School, 2nd Place: Jasmine Saldana Madrid, Valle Verde Early College High School, 3rd Place: Amber Saldana Madrid, Valle Verde Early College High School.

5-8th grade category: 1st Place: Galilea Rodriguez, LeBarron Elementary School, 2nd Place: Jesus Martinez, Presa Elementary School, 3rd Place: Victoria Alarcon, LeBarron Elementary School.

A total of 90 students signed up for the inaugural Troncoso Reading Prizes, and these students read a remarkable 1,562 books. An overwhelming majority, 71 students, read five or more books between September 15-November 15. Many students read more than twenty books.

The prizes are awarded only to students within the geographical area covered by the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library. A list of eligible schools is available at Troncoso Reading Prizes.

First Place receives a $125.00 gift card, Second Place receives a $100.00 gift card, and Third Place receives a $75.00 gift card. All prizes are gift cards from Barnes and Noble Booksellers. A total of six prizes are awarded in the two categories every year.

The prizes are given to students who read the most books from September 15 to November 15 of each year. During this time period, students read a minimum of five books. The students who read the most books are the prizewinners. Each student picks a favorite book from the books read and writes a short essay (100 word or less) on that book. Prizewinners have their essays laminated and displayed next to their favorite book in the library.

Librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library use the Evance System to register readers during the eligible period of the prizes. The library staff administers the prizes and makes final decisions on all the prizewinners.

If you have any questions or to register next year, please contact the library staff at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907. Telephone: 915-858-0905.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Troncoso Reading Prizes

I have established the Troncoso Reading Prizes for children and young adults at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library in Ysleta (El Paso, Texas). These six prizes for grade school, middle school, and high school students in the Ysleta area will be given out every year for those who read the most books from September 15-November 15. The librarians at the Sergio Troncoso Branch Library will administer the prizes. To read more about the Troncoso Reading Prizes and to download the rules for eligibility, please visit:

http://www.sergiotroncoso.com/library/index.htm

El Paso Public Library, Sergio Troncoso Branch Library, 9321 Alameda Avenue, El Paso, Texas, 79907.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Ramon Renteria

Yesterday Ramon Renteria officially retired from an illustrious career as a newspaper reporter for the El Paso Times. In my mind, he was that one border voice for El Paso, Texas and the border region that was indispensable. Over the years, I came to know Mr. Renteria as a straight-shooter who understood everything from the politics to the peccadilloes of my hometown, and I valued the many friendly exchanges we had over coffee or through emails. In 1999, Mr. Renteria gave me one of the first interviews after my first book, The Last Tortilla and Other Stories, was published, and I wanted to return the favor today.

ST: As you reflect on your great career as a journalist from El Paso, what changes have you seen that most startle you, what trends, positive and negative, are most important for readers to understand the changing newspaper business?

RR: I've worked 44 years as a newspaper reporter, starting as a general assignments reporter in eastern New Mexico. Thirty-nine of those years were spent in El Paso where I made the rounds of the beats, covering everything from cops to the courts system, the Hispanic community, border issues, Juárez, and education. I also spent four years running a two-person bureau in Las Cruces for the El Paso Times and keeping track of news throughout southern New Mexico. I received a well-rounded education in the field, hands-on reporting– something more valuable than anything you could possibly learn from books or simply listening to someone lecture in a college classroom.

I've gone from fairly primitive technology, a manual typewriter to the electric typewriter, the first somewhat limited newsroom computers to what we now have, the ability to write and transmit news or whatever you write from almost anywhere on a laptop computer, a computer table or a smart phone.

As an old school journalist, I've always stuck to the basics: solid research and reporting and writing with passion.

I've been fortunate to have worked in the heyday of newspaper journalism back when editors and corporations didn’t mind spending money to get the story. The best editors encouraged and cultivated good writing. I always tried to look for the story beyond the basic who, what, where and why principles taught in college journalism.

While the newspaper industry has lost advertising revenue and readers in its print product over the years, I still say that it takes boots on the ground—good reporters and photographers—to gather the content that newspapers now increasingly rely on to beef up their online products. People still enjoy a good read in the newspaper. The good writers, the ones who try to tell a good yarn, are fading from the news industry.

A reporter these days is no longer just a guy with a pen and notepad. You have to constantly reinvent yourself or at least embrace the new technology. When you go on assignment, you’re now expected to not only gather the words and facts but also to bring back or send from the field images, either still photos or short videos. I cast aside the traditional notepad long ago and replaced it with a tape recorder, first a standard cassette recorder and now two digital recorders capable of recording a 17-hour interview nonstop.

I’m convinced more and more print papers will start publishing on fewer days of the week within the next five years but never will disappear. Sadly, the younger generation sometimes prefers to receive its news in daily spurts of social media.

Too many young people no longer read for pleasure, no longer read books, magazines or newspapers. I worry how long we can maintain a literate nation if the trend continues.


ST: Why did you become a journalist, and why did you stay a journalist even after your initial reasons may have changed? What advice would you give young journalists today, in newspapers and in other areas of journalism?

RR: I became a journalist simply because I loved reading and writing as a teenager. Or as I said in my farewell column because “shoveling words is much easier than shoveling cow manure.” Frankly, I was an incredibly shy person, so shy that I refused to take the final in a college speech class. Writing seemed like the perfect escape, the perfect way to express myself. Journalism forced me out of the shell, forced me to learn to listen to what others have to say.

I tell prospective young journalists that they have to be multi-media experts, multi-talented and proficient at not just collecting and writing information but also at shooting and editing photographs and video. That future is here now. If they don’t embrace the new journalism, then maybe shoveling cow manure is a better option.

I could have gone into management, perhaps gone to a bigger market. I chose to continue writing because that’s more fun. Half the fun of being a reporter is being out there experiencing stuff and talking to people. You can’t get the color and good quotes for a story if you’re tethered to a telephone in an office.

The way news is delivered is changing radically but good writing skills still matter.


ST: Your book page has been so important for the community of El Paso, but also for the devotion it has had to Latino writers. Why did you start the book page? Why was it important for you to provide a forum for Latino literature?

RR: I did not start the book page. I was asked to take over the book page more than 10 years ago. For years, the page mostly focused on wire copy or the authors and books that the wire services chose to profile. The page rarely reflected the literature produced by writers in the El Paso and border region or even writers from across the Southwest.

I wanted to showcase Latino authors and other writers from the borderlands and the Southwest but usually found their voices missing on the wire services.

Gradually, I transformed the page, gave it more of a border/Southwest flavor. Lucky for me, New York writer Rigoberto González started submitting reviews showcasing writers and poets from New York to California. After a while, the book page lured other Latino guest contributors and other reviewers who preferred to write about books dealing with the border, the West and Southwest. Not that I’m looking forward to colgar los tenis anytime soon but if anyone were to write my obituary I hope that they at least mention that I tried to give some ink to writers too often still neglected in the mainstream press.


ST: What do you think you would most want to communicate about the importance of writing and reading for you? What ideas might you have to encourage those who may not be avid readers or who may be reluctant about writing?

RR: I stopped reporting and writing for a few years and became a line editor, editing copy that other writers produce. I could point out the people in the newsroom that read on a regular basis simply by the way they wrote. The equation is simple: you can’t be a writer or a good writer if you don’t read. Reading nourishes the imagination whether you write fiction, nonfiction or fact-based journalism.

If I knew how to compel people to become readers, I would be making big bucks in some corporate office in New York City, Chicago or Atlanta. I don’t know. That's a difficult question. If you haven’t acquired a passion for books or the printed word by the time you’re in grade school, it is going to be extremely difficult for you as an adult to sort out what is real or meaningful and what is bullshit.

As for writing, you learn best by writing on a regular basis and rewriting, sometimes rearranging stuff until it hurts. Too many young writers, especially in this business, think that they’re great writers because they have a degree or two or because they can regurgitate facts. Good writing is a lonely endeavor, just you and the blank page or the blank screen and that damn blinking cursor.


ST: What changes have you seen in the El Paso/Juárez area that you think are important, and what would you most want to preserve about the character or ambiance of this city?

RR: When I arrived here, El Paso/Juárez was a rapidly growing metropolis trying to find itself, trying to carve its identity. Middle-aged and older white guys ran the newsrooms and the editorial policies of the two daily newspapers. The Chamber of Commerce pretty well dictated who would get elected to political office. El Paso was trying to change but at the same time clinging hard to the old ways, the old attitudes or systems that sometimes kept Mexican Americans from progressing. I’m not too familiar with how things work in Juárez but in El Paso, the Mexican American population eventually found itself in positions of authority. Sadly, the majority of political leaders snared in the FBI’s ongoing corruption scandal were Mexican American.

El Paso is starting to look more like a big city or a city with big city issues, more traffic congestion, too many schools and not enough children, aging public infrastructure and an eroded downtown core trying hard to bounce back.

I recently interviewed a Virginia writer who has lived in El Paso for a few years. She described El Paso as a big city with a small town heart.

I hope El Paso matures, behaves more like a city, but never loses that small town corazón.


ST: Your homespun humor and your love of detail about all-things-El Paso have often distinguished your columns. How did you come about this ‘writing style,’ or voice? Tell us a bit about the craft of writing from your point of view.

RR: I don't recall how I found my so-called voice. One day as a payasada I decided to inject a bit of Spanglish into the column. Mixing English and Spanish has always been the border’s third language, sometimes even in Juárez. So I started writing in the voice of la gente. I’m convinced that’s why the column has earned so many fans over the years. A lot of people can relate to the pendejadas that I write. Even though I dislike writing in the first person, I have often told readers about my own medical issues, my own brushes with death. Maybe that convinced some readers that I’m not a celebrity but just another vato who hurts and cries and worries and farts just like them. The homespun style sort of just evolved.

My bilingual writing style also pissed off a lot of people. I’m constantly chastised by the language purists. Los güeros insisted that I should stick to English or at least include a glossary because they don’t get what I'm saying. Well-educated Mexicanos and Mexican Americans often accused me of cheapening the language, that I am neither proficient in English or Spanish and that I should shut up and not remind them of their ghetto roots.

I write mostly to amuse myself, sort of like a monkey playing in a zoo. I love the rhythm of words. Once in a while, something somewhat profound rolls off the fingertips. Most everything I write goes through multiple layers of rewriting.


ST: What are your plans, and in particular do you have any writing-related projects as you step away from the newsroom?

RR: I don't have any immediate plans other than to take a break from the daily work routine for a while and spend some time re-connecting with friends and family. Like most writers, I'd like to leave a memoir of sorts for my children and grandchildren. So I’ll be devoting some writing and editing time to that endeavor. Like I said in my farewell column, I love writing and the rhythm of words. Hopefully, I can latch on to some free-lance writing projects such as travel pieces or profiles. The El Paso Times offered to continue my weekly column on a free-lance basis but I've declined that offer for the time being. The newspaper left the door open for me to reconsider. So quien sabe? Maybe the never-ending columnist, as one fan once described me, will resurrect someday. Writing is not a faucet that you can turn off and forget, especially after you’ve spent almost all of your adult life writing– converting snippets of facts and quotes into an interesting yarn that may inform, amuse or inspire someone.

Sunday, April 19, 2015

Gabi, a Girl in Pieces

Isabel Quintero’s Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (Cinco Puntos Press) is a hilarious and powerful young adult novel with an unforgettable character in Gabi, la gordita, seeking to be true to her independence and integrity while she navigates the disasters and dramas of her senior year in high school. Quintero has created a voice that will resonate for many years to come. I hope this book will find the legions of readers it deserves, students, parents, teachers, and beyond.

Gabriela Hernandez starts a journal right before senior year, and it is this taboo-breaking, gut-spilling text where Gabi is true to herself, where she chronicles her confusions and declarations about being “a bastard child,” teenage sex and pregnancy, being too Mexican or not Mexican enough, her love of food, especially Hot-Cheetos, and society’s hypocritical expectations and pressures on young women, especially Chicanas. Gabi’s journal writing is profane, funny, revealing, and wise, but her experiences and decisions during her last year in high school will keep the reader riveted to the story.

Gabi struggles with her weight and self-image, yet she finds an outlet in writing when a teacher, Ms. Abernard, nurtures her poetry, recommends “secret reading lists” to Gabi and her classmates, and encourages them to read their poetry at a coffeehouse, The Grind Effect. Gabi has early crushes on Joshua Moore and Eric Ramirez, and has never been kissed. But she will change that soon enough, with the aroma of Hot-Cheetos on her “soft luscious lips.”

Meanwhile, Gabi’s two best friends have dramas of their own. Sebastian reveals to Gabi that he’s gay, which goes well, but when Sebastian reveals this to his father the son is kicked out of the house. Sebastian ends up staying with Gabi. Another best friend, Cindy gets pregnant by German, “one of those guys who knows he’s super hot and assumes girls HAVE to like him.” Gabi witnesses the birth of Cindy’s baby and wonders “how something so utterly disgusting can be so utterly beautiful at the same time.” Later, Cindy will confide a secret to Gabi that will cause la gordita to turn (justifiably) violent.

Gabi’s family is also a mess around her, and she must endure, explain, and overcome them. Her father is a methamphetamine addict, who is missing from home for days at a time. Gabi loves and hates her mother, who harangues her about her weight and constantly admonishes her to keep her ‘ojos abiertos y las piernas cerradas.’ Gabi listens and doesn’t listen to her mother’s advice, yet it is the mother who ends up pregnant after having unprotected sex. Beto, Gabi’s younger brother, skips school to paint graffiti art, and seems lost without his father. At the end of senior year, as Gabi is applying to the University of California at Berkeley, she must take whatever steps are necessary to go beyond this family and her life at Santa Maria de Los Rosales High School.

Gabi is in pieces in more ways than one: with emotions that contradict each other, with expectations and pressures that pull her every which way, with “jiggly goodies” in awkward dresses, and with crushes on boys she thinks she likes and those she learns to love. She is trying to put her self together, like a jigsaw puzzle, making mistakes and discovering solutions on the fly, her heart on her sleeve, with a verve that often astonishes the reader. If this is not one of best contemporary books about the teenage soul, I don’t know what is. 

Perhaps the best achievement of Isabel Quintero’s “Gabi, a Girl in Pieces” is what it says about what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’ about teenage sexuality, and how many adults are captive to a moral system that often denies them their best sense of self. You can be responsible, you can be honest about who you are and what you want, and you can empower yourself, if you can only survive the treacherous shoals of those teenage years. Like Gabi, you will need a razor-sharp wit and family and friends, as long as they don’t screw you up too much. You will need a ferocious independence, even when you see yourself with so many faults and limitations. Finally, you will need an integrity that demands you be true to your emerging self, always.

(This book review originally appeared in the El Paso Times on April 19, 2015.)