Author: Carlos

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Book Reviews Espana Europe Intellectuals Moslems Philosophy, World politics Uncategorized World Affairs

A Christian hero warrior who lived among Arabs, a book review.

Pérez Reverte, Andrés. Sidi. Un relato de frontera (Miami: Alfaguara/Penguin Random House, 2019), pp. 371.

[Spanish below] El Cid Campeador, Spain’s favorite Christian warrior, appears here with the Arabic name that his own comrades in arms gave him, according to the author. And, indeed, it is a frontier tale, as the subtitle claims, referring to the imaginary line in the Iberian Peninsula that separated the Christian Goths from the Islamic Moors in the eleventh century, before Spain emerged.

The author warns us that Sidi “is a fictional story… that combines history, legend and imagination.” And, for me, that combination was satisfying because I think I can understand something of the past, trusting that he investigated enough before executing the final drafts. He relied on his understanding of the historical trends that slowly unfolded over centuries serving as a background for the actions of his characters. There is no doubt that integrating in the twenty-first century events from the eleventh century with legends embellished by the imagination demands certain caution for us readers. Worse in this case when historians warn of us of how little documentation remains of this warrior who continues to enjoy mythical glory. Perez Reverte includes gory descriptions of throat slicing and beheadings but medieval history in general confirms the enormous sacrifices of life that occurred often enough in the name of loyalty to man and god.

But the fact is that, despite the fiction woven into his tale, I have been able to confirm, for example, more than anything else, the social intertwining that must have existed between Christians and Muslims at that time. The fact that Pérez Reverte baptized his novel with the Arabic name of the famous warrior says a lot. I believe he hit the mark in choosing the title for his novel. I think that this social and economic intertwining represents the main argument in this book, better than a historical essay. It was a very good read. An English version is quite probable.

El Cid Campeador aparece aquí con el nombre árabe que sus propios compañeros en armas le pusieron, según el autor. Y, efectivamente, es un relato de frontera, como reza el subtítulo, la línea imaginaria en la península ibérica que separaba los godos cristianos de los moros islámicos en el siglo once, antes de que surgiera una España. Pérez Reverte incluye descripciones sangrientas de cortes de garganta y decapitaciones, pero la historia medieval en general confirma los enormes sacrificios de la vida que ocurrieron con bastante frecuencia en nombre de la lealtad al hombre y a dios.

El autor nos advierte que Sidi “es un relato de ficción donde…combina historia, leyenda e imaginación.” Y, para mí, esa combinación me ha satisfecho porque creo poder entender algo del pasado, gracias a este autor que investiga algo antes de escribir sus borradores finales. Confió en su haber entendido las tendencias históricas que se desenvuelven lentamente a través de los siglos y fungen como trasfondo en el comportamiento de los personajes. Es innegable que el compaginar en el siglo veintiuno hechos del siglo XI con leyendas embellecidas por la imaginación requiere exigir cierto cuidado para nosotros los lectores. Peor en este caso cuando poca documentación queda del domador de la frontera tal como nos avisan los historiadores, en contradicción a la gloria mítica que le asignan los españoles.  

Pero el hecho es que, a pesar de la ficción entretejida aquí, he podido, como lector, confirmar, por ejemplo, más que nada, el entrelazo social que debió haber existido entre los cristianos y los musulmanes en esa época. El hecho de que Pérez Reverte bautice su novela con el nombre arábico del insigne guerrero dice mucho ya. Intitular su novela de esta manera me parece una decisión acertada. Por último, pienso que ese entrelazado social y económico representa el argumento principal de este libro y de esto el autor ha hecho un excelente repaso, mejor que un ensayo histórico. Fue una lectura muy buena.

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Book Reviews Central America Current Events Humanities Washington Talks Intellectuals Latin America Philosophy, World politics Talks and other events World Affairs

The Monkeys Have No Tail in Zamboanga–A Growing Up Story (a book review)

Wolfe, Reese. The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959) pp. 169.

An old friend, gone by and by, wrote this wonderful memoir a few years before I met him. He confessed he was an author when we worked together, but I did not read his work until decades later. Now I’m glad I finally read this part it; it may have been his most satisfying.

The Monkeys Have No Tails is Reese’s memoir of growing up and becoming a man. He told me, when I knew him, that he had grown up in the Berkeley-San Francisco area in a well-heeled family, an assertion confirmed in this book. I discovered I was vaguely familiar with his growing up years, as chronicled here, most probably because we talked about his early life when my wife and I visited him and his wife, Dorothee, and I started learning the little matters that underpinned our work. We were cultural attaché’s in Central America, he the older, I the younger (much younger).

Reese tells us in his book that he became a man at sea. That is what this memoir is about; that at the age of eighteen he left home and made it to the old wharfs in San Francisco where he committed himself as an apprentice mariner on a rusty old merchant marine ship. He thought it was the beginning of an exotic adventure but was soon put to work cleaning and polishing the entire ship, day after day, then later shoveling coal into the steam boilers. This is how came to sail the briny blue for countless weeks. He became overwhelmed with regrets when the fabled ports of call turned out to be a big disappointment.

He couldn’t get back home quickly enough.

In between, he discovered, among other things, that in Zamboanga monkeys have no tails but more importantly he learned lifelong lessons: who he was and who he wasn’t. He admired the first assistant engineer so much that he began aping him, but soon came to terms with himself, with who he was—and to return to finish up college in Berkeley.

He writes in a light and friendly manner and includes songs he sang on the ship’s foc’sle, strumming his banjo-ukulele to ease the long days on deck.

Reese Wolfe and his daughter, Mimi.

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Book Reviews Current Events Intellectuals Nazis Philosophy, World politics Prisons in the U.S. United States World Affairs

Walla Walla Penitentiary in the 1970’s, a book review

Stastny, Charles and Gabrielle Tyrnauer. Who Rules the Joint? (Lexington MA: Lexington Books, 1982) pp. 234.

The authors of this book, a man and wife team, write that they were personally affected by the violent uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, in 1971, in part because they lived nearby. As professional scholars, they had previously studied survivors of the Nazi regime. Coincident with Attica, they learned of the unusually progressive changes that were being reported at the first Washington State Prison (WSP) also known as Walla Walla. Determining that these were exceptional circumstances they turned their investigative capacity to the goings on in Washington State, producing this book as a result.  

Who Rules the Joint? begins by offering a perspective on what appeared to be significant reforms at Walla Walla in the late 1970’s. One of their findings is that the prison policy revisions there in those years were among the most progressive in the United States.

To help the reader grasp the meaning of this assertion the authors review the growth of prisons in the United States. Their analysis allows them to develop a typology of “power configuration” in American penal institutions. In other words, they sort out their understanding of the application of authority in a prison and come up with the following categories: unicentric (“keepers over prisoners”), bicentric (“keepers vs convicts”), tricentric (“keepers, remediators and inmates”) and polycentric (“Mass society, Prisoners, keepers, guards’ unions, courts, legislatures, mass media, etc.”). Authority exercised by the “keepers” of a prison is most strict in a unicentric situation because the power is concentrated in one place, it is unified at the top with the wardens. At the other end of the continuum, authority is polycentric because it is spread among several actors, or in many places, theoretically, at least.

Chapters 5 and 6 contain the key findings of the study and the information most specific to Walla Walla. Spurred by Dr. William R. Conte, reform-minded administrators endorsed new ideas at a time when progressive change was rising in American society. WSP saw the rise of a polycentric arrangement of authority that endured from 1971 to 1973, a condition not seen anywhere else. A Resident Governing Council (RGC) made up of elected prisoners who could sit down with the superintendent to decide how the prison was going to be run is a remarkable example of this period. The fact that inmates published their own newspaper also stands out as a notable demonstration of inmate influence. In the chapters noted, the authors weigh and analyze the relative strength of inmate power, but they also report the decline of the experiment. The RGC was eliminated by 1979 and things returned to a more authoritarian configuration, somewhere between unicentric and bicentric. A multitude of factors intervene in the process and they are discussed in detail. The manner of reversing the “power configuration” from many points of influence to only one or two is punctuated with reports of significant violence taking place all the way to 1979.

One of the final conclusions I make is that the late 1970’s were undoubtedly the toughest years in Walla Walla for everyone concerned. Another is that penal directors at the very top along with high state officials necessarily took stock of the situation and decided to reinstate the fullest control possible.

The authors of this seemingly neglected volume include copious end notes filled with important explanatory notes and a bibliography about prisons that appears quite comprehensive up to the point of publication. I consider Who Rules the Joint? a primer for anyone beginning to understand prisons in America.

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Book Reviews Current Events immigration Uncategorized United States

A girl grows up in Brooklyn, a book review

Smith, Betty. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (New York: Harper Perennial, 1943, 2001) pp.493.

This book is a masterpiece of Americana, written in a heartwarming, humanistic manner. Notice that it first appeared in 1943, the best the author ever wrote, kindly and fittingly rescued from oblivion and published anew.

Betty Smith and her book

It is a tender tale of growing up in America, in Brooklyn, in the first decade of the 20th century. The life of a penurious but respectable family is narrated by Francie, the pre-teenage daughter whose understanding of herself and her family evolves during a five year span. A portrait of her beloved Irish father who would rather sing in pubs than hold a proper job is heart rending as it is earnest, as is her mother who devotedly and efficiently holds the family together even after the death of her husband.

Still, the centerpiece is Francie’s growing up into an independently-minded young woman. Early Brooklyn is also portrayed with affectionate detail, the candy seller, the local tavern, the local school, while New York City lies far away, an alien country across the river that barely enters the picture. In an afterword we learn that the novel is autobiographic.

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Book Reviews Central America Current Events Humanities Washington Talks immigration Intellectuals Mexico migration u.s.-mexico border United States World Affairs

LIVING AS AN UNDOCUMENTED PERSON IN AMERICA, A BOOK REVIEW

Marcelo Hernández Castillo. Children of the Land: A Memoir (New York: Harper Collins, 2020), pp. 362.

Every American should read this memoir because it offers a real, personalized story about what it means to live as an undocumented person in the United States. Most Americans have no idea.

The author was brought to the United States in 1991 as a youngster by his undocumented parents, making him a DACA person. This means that, like his parents, he too was undocumented but received protection from deportation in 2012 from President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (hence DACA). He was one of a great multitude in similar circumstances, but different from most of them because he obtained a green card visa later, after all, as he explains.

Like most DACA folk, Castillo became Americanized to the point of losing fluency in Spanish, relying on over the counter drugs, wearing a nose plug, and even getting tattooed. And, like many of his fellow Dacas, he also achieved what most mainstream Americans do not: a master’s degree from a leading university. He does not expound on the challenges he encountered doing this, but they must have been enormous. Instead of becoming a lawyer or a doctor, he became a poet. Here are the reasons he admits for this:

I wanted to write poetry because I believed any practice in the English language would distance myself from my identity as an immigrant and I thought (naively ashamedly so) that the farthest association from an immigrant was a poet How foolish I was. Little did I know the lineage of immigrant poets I came from…(p. 75).

Then, again he explains regarding learning English:

I wanted to write and speak English better than any white person, any citizen, because in the unthinkable case of ever getting caught by immigration, I thought I would impress them enough with my mastery of English to let me go. What a stupid idea. (pp.75-76)

Castillo’s memoir is framed around the agonizing challenges of obtaining his own residential visa, then trying to get his father’s and later his mother’s. I found this part particularly gratifying because he unabashedly divulges the psychological and social strains involved. Just driving to be interviewed at the ICE offices to qualify for the visa he became fearful of committing a mistake that would get him pulled over and arrested obliterating his dream of holding a visa. Paranoia and trauma are words that he uses to describe his feelings—and those of his family. The rest of us would be better Americans if we could appreciate these experiences.

He is a poet writing his memoirs, so the biographical elements mentioned in the paragraphs above are veiled in his often florid text and fluid structure. Reading the text with care will help.

Why Castillo’s family chose to immigrate without documents in the first place is a crucial point addressed only tangentially because it is, after all, a memoir, not a history book. He works as a professional poet.

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We Became Mexican American, a book

WAS TRUMP “COMPROMISED” BY RUSSIA? A BOOK REVIEW

Strzok, Peter. Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020). 350 pp.

The author of this book is one of the many government officials who was removed from his job with the endorsement of President Trump during his administration. In effect, Trump fired Strzok, an FBI agent, for criticizing him privately and then attacked him viciously in the media bringing Strzok’s career to a disgraceful ending. The information in this book springs from this controversial dismissal, and there is more.

The author, a counterintelligence specialist, was directed to lead the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign organization’s connections with Russian agents many weeks before Donald Trump was elected. The essence of Strzok’s argument is that too many ties began popping up between Trump’s campaign managers and the Russians, especially when a Russian lawyer offered “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, who was running against Trump, to Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Trump’s son in law, and Paul Manafort, a Trump associate. Why? To influence the election so that Americans would vote for Trump, not Clinton. This constituted foreign intervention in America’s domestic politics.

This was the situation that compelled top level FBI officials, including Strzok, to begin investigating Trump’s campaign organization. At one point they asked themselves, could Donald Trump be involved as well? Was he compromised? When Trump learned of this investigation he began his attack on Strzok.

The first half of the book offers an intriguing chronicle of the author’s training as a counterintelligence agent including cases in which he was involved, and which exemplify his kind of work. If you like spy narratives, you will enjoy these pages. The second half offers the evolution of the circumstances that finally triggered the investigation of Trump’s campaign managers, a situation that became the author’s crowning counterintelligence assignment, ironically. It is a vital case study in President Trump’s foreign relations, especially vis-à-vis Russia, and the way he manipulated officials in his administration, even members of the CIA and the FBI.  

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We Became Mexican American, a book

A book review about Friedrich Nietzsche

Cate, Curtis. Friedrich Nietzsche (Woodstock: Overlook Press, 2005), p. 689.

Many history students usually cross paths with Nietzsche’s name, at one point or another. In a university setting, for example certain ideas may be described as “Nietzschean,” even though his intellectual creativity ranged widely from musical composition to poetry to philosophy and culture. Truly, he possessed an amazing intellect. After his death, German Nazis are said to have appropriated his sharply worded assertions of man’s ability to forge his own destiny, assertions that were revolutionary in many ways. He wrote at a time when democracy, capitalism and socialism were virtually unknown. In fact, he was an early critic of Christianity and other forms of organized religion, encouraging his detractors to label him as nihilistic and anti-authoritarian.  

Cate’s work gave me a glimpse of his humanity and how Nietzsche gradually formed the philosophy that bears his name. He enlightens the reader about the limited means that Friedrich’s mother and sister could command and why they became beholden to relatives in raising him. It could be said that in the absence of a father Friedrich grew up hen-pecked by them and this may have had something to do with the fact that he was unable to form a normal relationship with women. He suffered from headaches so severe that they literally incapacitated him for days. Still, he excelled in school, benefitting from Germany’s best teachers in a way that brought him to the attention of luminaries like Richard Wagner, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. He died in a storm of headaches.

I came across Nietzsche’s name at the university too, both as a graduate student and later as a professor. I wanted to have a better grasp of him. It was a good read, though tedious at times, depending on the amount of detail I wanted to soak up. Cate is credited with writing the biographies of other distinguished European writers and so this volume obviously enjoys proper company on library shelves.

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communist u.s.-mexico border Uncategorized United States

“YOU ARE A COMMUNIST!”

“You are a communist!” This is what a white, middle-age woman driver said to me from her SUV, as she rolled down her window, stopping alongside my car at a light, not far from my home. Wearing a Trump cap, she had noticed my home-made “bumper sticker” that says: DUMP TRUMP—SAVE AMERICA. This prompted her to speak to me through her open window. I have had the sticker on my car for about two years.

In her mind I am a communist because I want Trump dumped in November. He is anti-America. In her little mind anyone who is anti-Trump is a communist, apparently. I doubt she could define communism. (If anyone is a communist, she is because she supports a president who does not defend our country against Russia!) We got into a brief shouting match and then went our way (I will avoid shouting matches from now on because there is no gain from them. I have always thought that, but it escaped me that day, somehow).

So, what does this mean? One, it means that national politics is heating up and people are beginning to pay more attention. This is common in all presidential elections, but 2020 is like no other. Absolutely like no other.

The other lesson I draw from this little 10 second incident is that some Trump supporters, like this lady (many?), are know-nothings who easily swallow words and thoughts from propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Graham. A seed of fear and anxiety fuels their embrace for a liar and a manipulator like Trump. What is it? How could we have elected a man like that to begin with!

Bottom line: we are at a crossroads in America. The upcoming election is a critical moment for us as a nation.

I’m Hispanic and I can say that Hispanic issues regarding immigration are completely secondary to the survival of America. You cannot have fair and intelligent immigration policies without fair and intelligent American leaders. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris represent that kind of American. Right now, people like them predominate the Democratic Party. Let’s support them!

 

REGISTER NOW!        BE READY TO VOTE!

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY MUST BE BROUGHT DOWN AS

AN ENABLER OF DONALD TRUMP WHO IS

ANTI-AMERICAN & ANTI-DEMOCRACY!

(DUMP TRUMP!    SAVE AMERICA!)

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Book Reviews Current Events Prisons in the U.S. We Became Mexican American, a book

Join Our “Mixer” for Incarcerated Latinos on FaceBook June 28, 2020

Hello everyone,

I am inviting you to join me and my fellow LDO Volunteers who support Latino prisoners in the Monroe Correctional Center (MCC) in Monroe WA. We are doing a “Mixer” on Facebook, June 28th at 3 p.m., via Zoom. Please join us.

The Mixer will offer some informational and cultural activities. I will give a brief overview of our organization (LDO) at the start and two or three formerly incarcerated Latino community members will speak of their experiences. We’re hoping for some music too. So sorry we can’t offer you something to eat and drink!

If you are interested in the general topic of U.S. prisons and/or Latinx issues (culture, history, the Latino experience in the U.S., etc.) you may find our LDO Mixer hour interesting if not beneficial (if you’re interested in the subject of prisons, see my book review of American Prison, in this same blog). The purpose of our Facebook event is to help our communities understand prison realities, attract local volunteers to help with our prison work at the MCC, compile a list of followers and invite donor contributions.

The Monroe Correctional Complex, Monroe WA

LDO refers to the Latino Development Organization of Washington Serving Latinos in the Monroe Correctional Complex. This is the name of our nonprofit organization (501c3), and I am the president. LDO includes a Board of Directors, a small corps of community volunteers, and detainee leaders representing about 40 inmates in the MCC who affiliate with LDO. We appreciate both our community volunteers and the guys inside because without their help LDO would not exist. The photo at the top of this article, taken in 2019, shows some of our LDO detainees and some of our volunteers standing in front of artwork created by MCC prisoners.

The word “development” in the title of our organization was chosen by the LDO affiliated detainees a couple of years ago in one of our meetings. They chose it because they insisted and continue to insist on developing and improving themselves to achieve the fullest rehabilitation possible.

Before the pandemic struck, our LDO organization was building, at their request, a curriculum of educational and self-improvement activities, including guest presentations, short-term classes on psychology, history, art and culture (I gave some) and so on. They had already organized themselves into mentoring groups in art, Spanish, math, etc., as testimony of their own inclination toward self-improvement. Does that impress you? Our LDO guys impress me quite a lot. In any case, we’re preparing to resume our work as soon as possible.

Hope to see you on June 28th at 3 p.m.!

Visit and like us at our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/latinodevelopmentorganization/

And our web page is here: https://www.latinodevelopmentorganization.org/

 

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Book Reviews Caribbean Latin America

Christophe, the King of Haiti / The Kingdom of this World, a book review

Carpentier, Alejo. El reino de este mundo (Santiago, Chile: Editorial Universitaria, 1969). (See English below) El reino del que trata este libro de 142 páginas es el del “rey” de Haiti, Henri Christophe, que llegó a su fin en 1820 en la isla de Española.

Nacido en Suiza, pero criado en Cuba, el autor probablemente se dio cuenta en su juventud de la historia pesarosa del país vecino. Así es que nos asegura en la introducción, que en 1943 tuvo “la suerte” de hacer una visita a Haití donde encontró “las ruinas, tan poéticas de Sans Souci, la mole imponente” que legó Christophe a sus desharrapados compatriotas, refiriéndose al edificio colosal y masivo que sus vasallos tuvieron que erigir y que trae turistas hasta hoy en día.

Sans Souci

Considerado como uno de los más destacados escritores de América Latina del siglo XX, Carpintier hace un lado su estilo magistral rebuscado, el que resalta en la introducción de este libro, y, menos mal, no escribe el texto propio de la novela de una manera rebuscada, pues se ajusta al nivel de un esclavo negro llamado Ti Noël cuya suerte nos revela el mundo del rey Christophe.  A través de su precaria existencia el lector descubre, sin tener que aguantar términos pedantescos, de la manera en que Christophe ejerció su despotismo sobre sus súbditos desheredados, opresión que debió desaparecer después de las insignes luchas por la igualdad libradas por el célebre Toussaint L’Overture cuyo nombre curiosamente no aparece en este libro.

Carpintier deja ver su anhelo por descubrir “lo maravilloso” en la historia de los pueblos latinoamericanos para contraponer a géneros similares europeos. Así es que ve en la historia de Haití figuras protagónicas como la de Christophe (y Mackandal, líder revolucionario vudista) que tienen la capacidad de asombrar a través del tiempo por sus hazanas extraordinarias.  [January 2020]

The Kingdom of this World, is available in English. The kingdom that this 142-page book is about is that of the “king” of Haiti, Henri Christophe, who came to an end in 1820 on the island of Española.

Born in Switzerland, but raised in Cuba, the author probably discovered the sorrowful history of the country next door when he was a young man. He assures us in the introduction, that he was “lucky” to pay a visit to Haiti in 1943 where he found “the poetic ruins of Sans Souci, the imposing mass” that Christophe bequeathed to his ragged subjects, referring to the massive colossal edifice that they had to erect, a structure that attracts tourists to this day.

Considered as one of the most outstanding writers in Latin America in the 20th century, Carpintier sets aside his elaborate writing style, evident in the Introduction, and, thank goodness, writes the body of the novel less pedantically, adjusting it more realistically to his main character, a black slave named Ti Noël. His pitiful life draws the curtain for the reader on the world of King Christophe. Chronicling his precarious existence, we learn the way in which Christophe applied his despotism over his unprivileged subjects, an oppression that should have disappeared thanks to Toussaint L’Overture’s well-known fight for equality, but curiously this hero’s name is absent.

Carpintier exposes his desire to discover “the marvelous” in the history of Latin American peoples in contrast with similar European genres. So, he features protagonists like Christophe (and Mackandal, a voodoo revolutionary) in the history of Haiti as characters whose extraordinary feats enjoy the capacity to amaze over time.