|
Avenue 50 Studio, Inc. a 501(c)(3) non-profit arts presentation organization 131
North Avenue 50 ave50studio@sbcglobal.net
|
January 22, 2011 starting at 2:00 pm
Featuring: Luis J. Rodriguez reading from his book: It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing
Book Description: Hundreds of thousands of readers came to know Luis J. RodrÍguez through his fearless classic, Always Running, which chronicled his early life as a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles. The long awaited follow-up, It Calls You Back, is the equally harrowing story of RodrÍguez starting over, at age eighteen, after leaving gang life—the only life he really knew.
When his oldest son is sent to prison for attempted murder, RodrÍguez is forced to confront his shortcomings as a father and to acknowledge how and why his own history is repeating itself, right before his eyes. Deeply insightful and beautifully written, It Calls You Back is an odyssey through love, addiction, revolutions, and healing.
We encourage you to buy this book
Cover Image by CiCi Segura
http://www.sergiotroncoso.com
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays by Sergio Troncoso
Crossing Borders: Personal Essays By Sergio Troncoso Arte Público Press Publication Date: September 30, 2011 A thought-provoking collection of essays about transcending cultural borders “On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone,” Sergio Troncoso writes in this riveting collection of sixteen personal essays in which he seeks to connect the humanity of his Mexican family to people he meets on the East Coast, including his wife’s Jewish kin. Raised in a home steps from the Mexican border in El Paso, Texas, Troncoso crossed what seemed an even more imposing border when he left home to attend Harvard College. Initially, “outsider status” was thrust upon him; later, he adopted it willingly, writing about the Southwest and Chicanos in an effort to communicate who he was and where he came from to those unfamiliar with his childhood world. He wrote to maintain his ties to his parents and his abuelita, and to fight against the elitism he experienced at an Ivy League school. “I was torn,” he writes, “between the people I loved at home and the ideas I devoured away from home.” Troncoso writes to preserve his connections to the past, but he puts pen to paper just as much for the future. In his three-part essay entitled “Letter to My Young Sons,” he documents the terror of his wife’s breast cancer diagnosis and the ups and downs of her surgery and treatment. Other essays convey the joys and frustrations of fatherhood, his uneasy relationship with his elderly father, and the impact his wife’s Jewish heritage and religion have on his Mexican-American identity. Crossing Borders: Personal Essays reveals a writer, father and husband who has crossed linguistic, cultural and intellectual borders to provoke debate about contemporary Mexican-American identity. Challenging assumptions about literature, the role of writers in America, fatherhood and family, these essays bridge the chasm between the poverty of the border region and the highest echelons of success in America. Troncoso writes with the deepest faith in humanity about sacrifice, commitment and honesty. Book Reviews: “Engrossing and revealing.”---Daniel Olivas for The El Paso Times “Troncoso is an elegant writer whose work will make readers grateful that he writes his life down.”---The Hispanic Reader “These very personal essays cross several borders: cultural, historical, and self-imposed....We owe it to ourselves to read, savor and read them again.”---Manuel Ramos for The El Paso Times “It is these details that fill the simple and accessible prose of these essays with life, demonstrating how from such personal experiences emanate a universal message about what unifies us, despite our many differences.”---Spanish News Agency EFE Advance praise for Crossing Borders: Personal Essays: “Sergio Troncoso takes us on his journey from El Paso to New York, from child to husband, and student to father. He describes the solitary struggle of the writer, and the social and political hurdles overcome. Troncoso understands that in emerging from his chrysalis, he can never go back – nor does he want to. But the lesson is clear: You give something up to gain something else. As they say in the mercado in Chihuahua, 'What will you take for it?' Troncoso paid quite a lot, and it is worth our while to witness this journey from native son to the bloody birth of a public intellectual.”—Kathleen Alcalá, author of The Desert Remembers My Name “Touching and intelligent, this book shows what it’s like growing up an intellectual on the border of the US and Mexico. It’s often painful, often funny, but always precise in expressing how rich and challenging life can be, how sometimes moving away from home can bring you even closer to your family and heritage.”—Daniel Chacón, author of and the shadows took him and Unending Rooms “In this collection of essays Sergio Troncoso takes the reader on an intensely personal look at his musings…the inner workings of his mind as he seeks his truth, his reality through reflection. Sergio draws the reader into his exploration of the meaning of truth through relationships: with his wife and cancer, his sons, his parents, his grandmother, his culture, with his ivy-league colleagues and much more. These unadulterated reflections look at the emotions of fear, anger, disappointment, love and self-realization. His self-questioning commentary and analysis invite the reader into an intense and emotive dialog with her own reality again and again…long past the initial reading. I loved the work.”—Nora Comstock, President and CEO of Las Comadres para Las Americas “Border-crossings is a metaphor for the experience of Hispanic American professionals traversing America’s ‘borders’ on their way to making a better life for self, family and country. Troncoso’s use of short stories as if entries in a personal diary captures important life-impacting times along his journey from barrio through elite higher education to a life as a caring father and husband even while continuing to navigate the nearly always invisible barriers of exclusion. Readers interested in modern day acculturation will want to read and reflect on this rare opportunity to crawl into the mind of a talented Latino author who writes about a common Latino professionals story, and draw from his openness lessons intended to make us all better people.”—Frank Alvarez, President and CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund
November 20, 2011 starting at 2:00 pm
October 22, 2011 starting at 2:00 pm
September 16, 2011 11-1 pm
Poesia Para La Gente is brought to you by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation
August 28, 2011 2-4 pm
July 24, 2011 2-4 pm
Please join us for our next La Palabra Poetry. This one sounds EXCITING.
Poet/writer Fernando Castro will be the featured poet at our next La Palabra. His support for our literary programming is remarkable. After Fernando’s reading, we will feast on Taquizas catered by Chef Daniel Chiu. This is a mini fundraiser in celebration of La Palabra’s support for professional and emerging poets -- all proceeds will benefit La Palabra. We hope you will join us for wonderful poetry and gastronomical delights in honor of La Palabra.
May 22, 2011 2-4 pm
March 27 , 2011- 2-4 pm
March 5 , 2011- 6-9 pm
A celebration of David A. Romero's book, Diamond Bars: The Street Version, Student Performances: 5pm - 6pm Avenue 50 Studio is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the California Community Foundation; the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; NALAC Fund for the Arts, Nescafe Clasico and the Ford Foundation; and in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
February 26 , 2011- 7 pm
Featuring Music by: Maria Elena Gaitan, Cello • Curtis Robertson, Jr., Guitar/Bass This event is one of two Inspiration House PoetryChoir concerts at Avenue 50 Studio and is free to the public. Avenue 50 Studio is supported in part by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission; the California Community Foundation; the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs; NALAC Fund for the Arts, Nescafe Clasico and the Ford Foundation; and in part by the California Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
February 27 , 2011 from 2 - 4 pm
January 23 , 2011 3 pm
January 22 , 2011- 7 pm
October 24 , 2010 from 2 - 4 pm
September 26, 2010 from 2 - 4 pm
August 29, 2010 from 2-4 pm
Sunday, June 27, 2010 from 2-4 pm
Sunday, May 23, 2010 from 2-4 pm
| |||||
