I’m starting this draught connected the Fourth of July, 2026 successful the Northern California redwoods. The operation “250 Years of Independence” inundates my societal media feed, though astir radical posting the operation chide the intended meaning, highlighting the contradictions of the euphemism, immoderate the outright lie.
And I wholeheartedly agree.
And yet present I sit, excitedly making plans to ticker the U.S. men’s shot squad instrumentality connected Belgium successful a mates days. (And my deity was my Chicano goth bosom conflicted arsenic Mexico and England played the time before!) My cardinal request successful choosing a venue: 1 that is large and friendly, but yet won’t beryllium filled with the benignant of supporters shouting USA! USA!
I can’t deliberation of a amended illustration of being Latino successful the United States astatine this fraught infinitesimal of our history.
So what does each this person to bash with Latinx lit oregon Latine identities?
Everything.
And the erstwhile sentences are a cleanable literate illustration of my ain intelligence ambivalence astir the taxable matter: my inability to settee connected 1 descriptor.
Is it Chicano, Hispanic, Latino/x/e, (I inactive emotion the little infinitesimal erstwhile Latin@ was successful fashion)? I erstwhile had an exertion cull my effort due to the fact that I shifted betwixt utilizing those presumption without explanation. “But that was the point,” I argued, referencing Gloria Anzaldua who refused to construe oregon kowtow to 1 benignant of reader, to 1 language.
I emotion the discomfort, the confusion, the chaos that those words engender, truthful I premix and lucifer Latino, Latinx, Latine consciously. Whimsically.
Though possibly I americium being disrespectful, minimizing the value of self-definition, of pride, arming those successful powerfulness with ways to chide oregon ridicule our discourse.
And I hold with this critique.
And I don’t.
Do I basal for the USA oregon Mexico oregon or or?
Now you recognize the predicament.
Need much statistical proof? According to Fernanda Figueroa, researching U.S. Latinos for AP News successful 2025: “this increasing assemblage is acold from being a monolith. From shifting identities, expanding acquisition attainment and increasing governmental influence, Hispanic Americans proceed to beryllium a large portion of the nation’s tapestry.”
A fewer years ago, I sat down astatine a cafe array during the LA AWP 2024 Conference adjacent to an unassuming elder sipping coffee. After I settled, I realized the elder was nary different than Luis Rodriguez. I can’t statesman to explicit however overmuch his publication Always Running affected my beingness arsenic a young begetter during my aboriginal twenties.
Of course, I wanted to instantly stock that with him, but I waited; instead, we chatted: conferences, LA freeways. He was gracious and kind. Then, we shared stories of becoming a grandfather, of chaotic and unruly families, of lessons and survival. At that point, I thanked him for his writing. I told him however it helped me. He nodded but past said: “to beryllium honest, the medicine you request is ever within.”
This has go my mantra: my enactment to self, my crushed for reading, my tendency to write: unearthing the medicine.
In my 2024 caller All Friends Are Necessary, I strove to make characters who could bash what I struggled to do: judge each their complexity and contradictions, revel successful the fluidity of identity. I imagined communities of friends and lovers who resisted the request to specify each different successful specified static ways. That’s wherefore I emotion creation and artmaking: the powerfulness to ideate however things could be.
With my caller novel, The King of Aloe Vera, I absorption connected Rey, an amalgamation of each my elders backmost successful the time joking astir solid ceilings successful that mode that belies a rage and a futility: brownish capable to get the occupation but excessively brownish to get promoted. Well, that’s conscionable a tiny portion of the novel; it’s truly astir the beauteous messiness of surviving successful the occidental United States, successful the Bay Area, onshore that was erstwhile Aztlan, ever indigenous, and arsenic Anzaldua reminds us: volition beryllium again.
So for this “His Panic” Heritage Month, I’m recommending works by chap Latinx writers who volition amusement us—not the singular way—but the multiplicity of ways to observe and emotion ourselves successful each our glorious and uncomfortable messiness.
I privation I could bash what Bad Bunny did successful the 2026 Super Bowl halftime show, transgressively propulsion backmost connected portion reclaiming the phrase: “God Bless America.” He proclaimed it and past proceeded to database each federation of the Americas, decentering the commonly viewed knowing of that connection “America” arsenic circumstantial lone to the United States.
So fto this beryllium my effort to accidental thing similar: I emotion Latine Literature, and alternatively of referencing the well-known expected names, commencement with these.
And past possibly we tin effort to sanction each and everyone of america picking up the pen, scribbling distant our stories, gathering the narrative.
Because we request you.
Because we are the medicine.
Drop maine a postcard with your recommendations to support the database going:
POB 3555 Berkeley CA 94703.
*
*
Michael Nava, The Death of Friends (or immoderate of the Henry Rios novels, 8 successful total)
Nava writes modern queer Chicano detective novels acceptable successful LA and the Bay Area. They are messy and astatine times romanticist and cleanable formation speechmaking thrillers portion besides exploring issues of queerness and self-acceptance and homophobia. Characters are often faced with unit from some wrong and extracurricular of their communities.
Cherríe Moraga, Loving successful the War Years
I was pleasantly amazed to spot Alta Magazine constitute astir Moraga’s past book, Native Country of the Heart, in the 2026 summertime issue, but the publication that radicalized maine portion attending UCSB successful the ’90s was Loving successful the War years. “You tin bash that,” I retrieve thinking, the mode she moved done poetry, originative nonfiction, literate theory. I inactive emotion utilizing her effort “Art successful Ameríca con Acento” arsenic a starting disconnected constituent for my lit classes. Fireworks for real.
Tomás Rivera, …and the world did not devour him and Ron Arias, The Road to Tamazunchale
These are my literate abuelos. Brave books written during the tallness of the Chicano civilian rights question that eschewed the stereotypical narratives, that offered complex, astatine times problematic, yet wholly quality characters; Rivera and Arias played with signifier and taxable and style, that pissed immoderate radical off, but successful my humble sentiment these are the books I instrumentality to and usage successful my classes repeatedly due to the fact that of their risks and vulnerability and beauty.
José Vadi, Inter State and Chipped
I emotion the essay, the agelong signifier exploration of a taxable that weaves successful idiosyncratic communicative and probe and dazzling sentences: that is what Vadi does. With subjects ranging from California history, skateboarding, dive bars, gentrification and jazz: determination is specified joyousness and clarity and curiosity successful however helium explores these topics.
Ana Castillo, The Mixquiahuala Letters
I emotion letters: the dilatory process of penning them by hand, the stamping and addressing, the waiting weeks for the response. I fig I acquired this emotion from Ana Castillo’s epistolary caller betwixt 2 lovers, utilizing their letters to research identity, sexuality, taste history. I was thrilled by Castillo instructing the scholar connected however to work the publication based connected property types which past changes the chronology of the story. Risky and revolutionary.
Leslie Marmon Silko, Almanac of the Dead
(Silko arsenic acold arsenic I cognize does not place arsenic Latinx, but this publication explores truthful galore issues relating to our assemblage that I’m giving it an honorary spot here.) Big books are successful vogue now: East of Eden and Lonesome Dove and yeah, they are problematic arsenic hell, but I recognize wherefore radical support picking them up. However, everyone who reads those books (or immoderate publication astir the U.S. Southwest) should work Leslie Marion Silko’s Almanac of the Dead: the scope, the vision, the satellite building, the captious fabulation of imagining an penetration of the U.S. by Indigenous Mexican revolutionaries, equipped stateless reclaiming Tuscon, AZ. The publication is magic, a cleanse, possibly an antidote.
And arsenic a bonus, assorted poesy collections I love: Donato Martinez’s Touch the Sky, F.G. Manos Papi’s Rift, MK Chavez’s Dear Animal, each connected captious tiny presses which you should wholly spell retired and support.
__________________________________
The King of Aloe Vera by Tomas Moniz is disposable from Algonquin, an imprint of Hachette.
English (US) ·