Articles, Interviews, and Reviews
Inspiring Change
Greeley Tribune
Author Gloria Velasquez went to Roosevelt High School in Johnstown when the curriculum centered on white Europeans. Now she's promoting the sixth book in a series she created called "Roosevelt High School," set in a fictional city called Laguna on the central coast of California. There, a multiracial group of characters deal with issues Velasquez cares about, including teen pregnancy and homophobia.
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Author profile: Gloria Velasquez
Velasquez's novels are realistic without being depressing or hopeless. They offer teens of all ethnic groups the opportunity to read about the lives of others and to develop empathy and understanding, qualities that often seem lacking in society today.
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Book Reviews of the Roosevelt High School series
Teaching Tolerance
"The Roosevelt High School Series, for grades 7 and up, features characters that young people can relate to. The series deals with difficult contemporary subjects and captures the pressures and emotions that teenagers frequently experience. The use of Spanish words adds authenticity, while the glossaries help non-Spanish-speaking readers put the words in appropriate cultural contexts."
Multicultural Review
"Fans of Velásquez's earlier novel, Juanita Fights the School Board (1994), and even those who found that book slow-moving, will enjoy Maya's Divided World. Velásquez offers a fast-paced story about Juanita's well-to-do best friend, Maya, whose parents are getting a divorce....While Maya's Divided World has much to say about a teen's experience of divorce, it also examines and reaffirms the various characters' Mexican-American heritage, though in a way that is critical of the traditional balance of power between women and men." (Lyn Miller-Lachmann)
The Latino Review of Books
Superwoman Chicana
By Roberta Gordenstein (Elms College)
I Used to be a Superwoman
In this eloquent and eminently readable collection of poems, Gloria Velásquez, poet, novelist, and professor, expresses her desire to experience life fully, to be her own woman, even at the cost of becoming Superwoman. The cover illustration mimics the superhero comic genre by depicting a determined woman with six arms juggling domestic implements as well as her university book bag against a gigantic “S” in the background. “Superwoman Chicana,” the title poem reveals the multiplicity of roles that turn her into “the super-pendeja Chicana, very very tired, and fed up.” According to Velásquez, for a Hispanic woman the only way out of a barrio, the fields, or the hotel rooms is a college degree: Edúcate mujer / Adelante mujer / the future is yours. Contrary to the expectations of her machista culture, she dares to leave her husband and raise her child alone in order to get an education, thus inspiring others who fight the uphill battle for liberation.
Otherness provides the context for much of the poetry by this Mexican-American woman. Surrounded by Anglo society, marginalized by her Chicana identity, Velásquez nonetheless takes pride in her heritage: “Children of the Sun, the earth pleasures in your burned, bronzed body. This is Aztlán / where my people were born / My ancestors didn’t come on ships / across the ocean blue.” Her response to the question, “Who am I?” is that she embodies all women of Hispanic heritage and history, la Malinche, la Virgen de Guadalupe, la Llorona, the undocumented woman laborer, the revolutionary Chicana, crying out for human rights and equality. The Chicana draws her strength from other female role models.
Gordenstein Reviews
Review by Dr. Willaim Martínez
Her brother’s birthday allows the author to recall the pain and anguish of his death while she expresses anger against the American flag, symbol of democracy but also the reason he died in Vietnam—“Just another pair of black shoes, Vietnam shoes, Fini’s shoes stained with blood”—and so she pens a tribute to the boy whose memory pervades the collection.
Velásquez also rails against the “patrocito” who controls the lives of Chicanos like a feudal lord, denigrating Hispanics, making their lives miserable, destroying the self-confidence of the young who fight so hard to succeed. Invoking the Chicano Movement with its battle for human rights, she uses poetry as a weapon, for her words to resound, her concerns to be acted upon. The final poem of the collection, “America” ironically perverts this patriotic song in a scathing indictment of California’s Proposition 187 which denies public education and welfare to children of illegal immigrants.
Part autobiography, part protest literature, this cathartic and compelling volume of poems powerfully reveals the author’s existential anguish—born alone, ultimately, we all die alone. The work cries out for memory, to remember those who came before, to be remembered by those who follow. This plaintive poetry poses disturbing questions as it laments the futility of the Vietnam war and the senseless death of young Chicanos who fought there. It also captures sorrows of childhood, the burdens of womanhood, and the contrast between past and future generations—her parents’ lives and her own. Accessible to both English and Spanish readers, this bilingual edition is visually enhanced by unforgettable black-and-white sketches by the author’s children—haunting drawings of a young soldier superimposed on the flag, mourners over a grave, and a grim-visaged child clinging to a barbed-wire fence.
Young Manson writers catch state judges’ eyes
Girls’ letters to favorite authors earn honorable mentions
May 29, 2006
People read because the experience changes their lives. That’s the presumption behind a new state contest, “Letters about Literature.” Students in grades 4-12 were encouraged to write a letter to their favorite authors, telling them how their work shaped their perspective on the world or on themselves. Two Manson High School students, sophomore Karla Pineda and freshman Samantha Etheridge, were among 11 students who received honorable mentions in the ninth to 12th-grade category. More than 1,500 students in grades 4-12 participated statewide. Instructors Mike Dewey and Jennifer Rayner gave the essay contest as an assignment to all ninth and 10th graders at Manson. Pineda and Etheridge are both Rayner’s students. “We are extremely proud that Samantha and Karla’s letter were honored,” Rayner said. Etheridge wrote to S.E. Hinton about her favorite novel, “The Outsiders,” a story about gangs in the 1950s and 60s. She read the book twice, she said, and saw the movie. The lesson she took from the novel: “I learned to accept gay people and not to judge them for their sexuality but for who they are,” Pineda said. “When my friend was gay and I found out, it helped me to accept them better.” Secretary of State Sam Reed honored the three contest winners in the three age categories—students from Spokane, Olympia and Stanwood—at a ceremony on April 18. “Children who are passionate about reading later become thoughtful and articulate adults. It is heartening to see so many young students interested in reading,” Reed said.
Winning Letter
Karla Pineda
September 27, 2005
Dear Gloria Velasquez, Your book Tommy Stands Alone is my favorite out of all your Roosevelt High School series. This book has helped me to accept homosexual people, and to understand them. It is very hard for them to come out, because they never know what peoples’ reactions will be.
When I found out that my friend was gay it was easier to accept him for who he is. I guess that it was also easier for him to have someone to talk to. Like Tommy, my friend also felt alone. He actually felt so alone that he was going to end his life. After reading your book, I knew that all I needed to do to help him out was just to listen. I encouraged him to just ignore what people said and to be true to himself. I told him that most people who were making fun of him were doing it because of their own insecurities, and then I gave him a copy of your book.
I spent hours talking to him everyday. I would talk to him before and after school, and whenever I could, just to see how he was doing. About four months later I finally convinced him to at least tell his parents; I felt they should be able to understand, since his mom always supports him in everything that he does. He didn’t want to at first because he was afraid that they wouldn’t accept him. He thought they might even kick him out. His parents didn’t take it very well at first, but they did accept him. He called me to tell me that everything went fine, and that he was really thankful that I had convinced him to tell his parents. It was hard, but I convinced him to get in to counseling so that he would have someone to talk to him or her when I wasn’t home. After a few months he called to tell me that everything was fine and that thanks to your book, he learned he just had to be himself.
I have learned so much from my friend. After talking to him about how your book has changed his life, I realized that it has also changed mine. Without your book I could have lost a really great friend. Your book taught me to appreciate books and now I actually love reading.
Tommy Stands Alone has helped my friend so much that he doesn’t need me anymore. Now when he calls me it is just to thank me for giving him support and helping him through those rocky times, and for sending him your book. Now he’s doing great, except I am the one thankful, for your book and for him, and for teaching me one of life’s really tough lessons. So once again, thank you so much Gloria for your wonderful book; I’m eternally grateful.
Sincerely,
Karla Pineda
The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize
An Anthology of Prize-Winning Fiction, Poetry, and Drama
Edited by Stephanie Fetta
“Sunland” is the ironic title of Gloria Velasquez winning 1984-85 short story that tells multiple histories of a small town in the United States. Perhaps influenced in tone and structure by Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, “Sunland” is the name of a village enshrouded in darkness. The obscurity creates an infertile environment, a metaphor for the social alienation and stagnation experienced by the town’s people. The story begins with an unnamed female voice recounting the death of her grandmother and her estrangement from her husband. The narration turns to family drama incited by the impending death of a neighbor, the elderly Dona Soledad. While the death of the narrator’s grandmother, la Nana, is expressed with grief, and the intimate hole left by Nana’s absence, the reader is brought into the physicality of Dona Soledad’s agony. Culpable of neglect, the personal histories of Dona Soledad’s trite children confront the emotional and practical difficulties of dealing with death. In contrast with la Nana, Dona Soledad’s last days become the stage on which notions of life, family, and love display the disingenuousness of her progeny. The intrigue around Dona Soledad’s moribund body plays on a deeper level as an allegory of the dark, barren, and dying town of Sunland. This story briefly mentions the year 1848—the end of the US-Mexican war—as the beginning of the period of physical darkness that slowly envelopes in the Southwest and so alludes to the dark history of the conquest and subjugation of indigenous and mestizo peoples from the triumph of US imperialism in the Southwest to modern times. In just a few pages, “Sunland” weaves these themes concisely and dramatically with a kinesthetic language where humor counters the seriousness of the plot.