laredoplaywriters

___special guests visit us 07/14/09

2009-07-17T13:50:00.000-07:00

___last Tuesday, 07/14/09 we received a new delightful short play written especially for this workshop by Anna Laura Salinas. It is a short ten minute effort, her first attempt and the working title is "A que no sabes who's coming to dinner". It is a family situation, several sisters in South Laredo who are expecting a very Special visitor. The dialogue is sassy and somewhat humorous as they all make suggestions on how to make the occasion truly memorable. The play is based on a true life situation that took place several years ago when the special visitor was ____________
___several notable Guests attended our session. it was a delight to welcome back that great actress, singer, dancer and very talented Journalist who had been away for some time. Tricia Cortez, gorgeous as ever attended and immediate became part of out workshop ensemble. She acted, she sang and made our presentation a little more entertaining with all her special talents.
___local legend, former radio DJ and retired Teacher Luciano Duarte also attended ad will soon be contributing his written efforts for the group to enjoy/
___the second read of the day was a second reading for Maria Eugenia Lopez on her play "El Mero, Mero". The music has been reworked and several small changes made. This project will soon be ready to face the cameras

___triple play

2009-07-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

___last night, 07/16/09, we put in some extra time on our playwriting project which is gaining momentum and some fame around the LCC campus . We "read" thru three ten minute plays prsented by our budding authors and here is a short summary of what they were
___first up was a brilliant effort by Maria Eugenia Lopez, an adaptation on the short story "The Chase"by John Collier. The setting is local and involves a young man with a very personal who is advised to go visit a "Cura", in this case not a Priest but rather a local Curandero. It is a play on language and the communication problems that sometimes occur. We shall see hos it turns out but it looks promising.
___Raquel Valle-Senties, our recognized resident authoress, delighted us with a fair sample of why sometimes all of us are sometimes late. It is both humorous and teaches us a short lesson about the importance of arriving on time. Again, this is an excellent effort on her part and we might soon begin recording on this marvelous creation.
___Roberto Gutierrez presented his revamped work on what was formerly titled "El Santo Y la Muerte. This time the name has been changed to "La Venganza de El Chivo" and has gained many new details and possible story plot lines. It is a continuing work in progress.
___all in all it was an enjoyable evening spent gaining an insight into what promises to be an extended project, this new summer theater playwriting workshop.

___Julia Vera was on Conan last night

2009-07-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

___at the bottom of this page, you will find a link that takes you directly to Julia Vera's appearance on Conan last night. It is a spoof on our Telenovela's.

___who is Americo Paredes ???

2009-07-11T13:08:00.000-07:00

___Américo Paredes is generally recognized as one of the seminal Mexican American scholars of the 20th century. Along with George I. Sánchez, Arthur León Campa, Julian Samora, fellow Texan Carlos Castañeda, and others he helped develop the foundations of modern Mexican American scholarship with his outstanding scholarly contributions. From mid-century onward his studies of corridos, folkloric ballads, machismo, and border stereotypes of Mexicanos formed the basis of a whole school of southwestern folklore most of whose investigators he trained.
Paredes was born in Brownsville, Texas on 3 September 1915 at a time of great border tension and violence resulting from the 1910 Mexican Revolution. His father, Justo Paredes, came from a ranching family that had settled on both sides of the lower Rio Grande valley in the mid-1700s after nearly two centuries as part of a Sephardic colony in Nuevo León. His mother's family had come from Spain around 1850; Clotilde Manzano-Vidal named their son Américo after the great 16th century Italian geographer and explorer because of a promise made to an aunt who was married to an Italian sailor.
One of eight children, Paredes received his early education in the public schools of his native Brownsville, Texas. After school hours he worked at various jobs to help support the family. In the evenings during summer vacations he often listened to corridos, folk tales, and oral traditions recounted by border "Mexicanos" around the campfire. In high school he later recalled first encountering anti-Mexican discrimination and racism. Among the more traumatic incidents was the racist presumption of his high school counselor that he would not go on to college. It almost deterred him. However, encouraged by a more sympathetic teacher and by winning first prize in a statewide poetry contest, he enrolled in Brownsville Junior College upon graduation from high school in 1934. While attending college he began working for the Brownsville Herald as a proofreader, translator and staff writer. Here he also met with discrimination, an ongoing experience that led to his lifelong energetic fight against ethnic bias and discrimination.
In 1935 at age 20 Paredes began seeing the poetry he had begun writing in high school published in the literary supplement to La Prensa in San Antonio. Two years later his first book of poetry, Cantos de adolescencia, came out. In the early 1940s Paredes married Consuelo (Chelo) Silva, a celebrated local singer, for a brief period and through this union a son was born. While continuing his job at the Herald, in 1940 he also accepted employment by Pan American Airways in work related to World War II.
Paredes resigned both jobs in 1944 to enter the U.S. Army as an infantryman. At the end of the war he was assigned to the army journal, Stars and Stripes and was sent to Tokyo to cover the war crimes trials. In the last year of his service he was appointed political editor of the Pacific edition of Stars and Stripes.
Upon taking his military discharge in Japan, Américo worked for the Red Cross as a specialist in public relations. It was during this time that he met his future wife, Amelia Nagamine, a young woman of Japanese-Uruguayan heritage, who also was working for the Red Cross in the same building. They initially were introduced by friends who wished to acquaint the two, since both were Spanish speakers and it was thought that they might enjoy conversing in Spanish. Before returning to the United States in 1950 he married Amelia, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life, more than 50 years, and together they had three children. A well matched couple, Amelia spent many years advocating in the state legislature and with the Austin State School in support of the mentally retarded.
Back in the United States, Paredes began to fulfill his dream of becoming a professor of English. Enrolling in The University of Texas at Austin, he was graduated, summa cum laude, in one year, completed his M.A. in English and folklore studies two years later, and in 1956 received his doctorate in those same fields. He then taught one year at Texas Western College, now The University of Texas at El Paso, before returning to Austin to accept a tenure track position teaching folklore and creative writing. During his first year of teaching at Austin his doctoral dissertation on Gregorio Cortez, the Tejano hero of a border corrido, was published by the university press. Titled With His Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and its Hero, it was an immediate and outstanding success and brought him widespread recognition and peer respect. Later his Folktales of Mexico, 1970 and A Texas Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border, 1976 assured his scholarly reputation.
Paredes spent the rest of his academic career in The University of Texas at Austin. In 1967 he helped found the Center for Intercultural Studies of Folklore and Ethnomusicology there. During the 1960s he also fought determinedly for creation of a Mexican American studies program in spite of discouraging anti-Mexican attitudes within the university. A colossus in the anthropology and English departments, he was named the Ashbel Smith Professor of English and Anthropology at the beginning of the 1980s and then the Dickson, Allen, and Anderson Centennial Professor in 1983.
Because of his outstanding skills and contributions in the field of folklore, in 1962 Paredes received a Guggenheim fellowship and five years later was invited to teach at the University of California, Berkeley as a distinguished visiting scholar. From 1968 to 1973 he served as editor of the Journal of American Folklore in which many of his 60-some scholarly articles were published.
An ethnic activist since his youthful days in Brownsville, Paredes persistently pursued his goal of validating Mexican American studies in the university. In spite of opposition, he continued his crusade, challenging the entrenched "old boy" network of his Anglo colleagues. Finally in 1970, with help from other Chicano faculty and graduate students, he succeeded in convincing the administration to authorize creation of a center for Mexican American studies. He was named its first director. His struggle for "la raza" (Hispanics) did not end there; he continued to fight against the historically and institutionally ingrained discrimination against "Mexicanos" widely prevalent in Texas. Twice in the early 1970s he tendered his resignation when he felt his suggestions were ignored or not given serious consideration by university administrators.
An outstanding teacher, Américo Paredes was a gentle, soft-spoken man who usually kept his intense feelings about discrimination and ethnic bias under wraps. His dignified, courtly demeanor masked a deep-seated indignation and at times anger over discrimination. At UT Austin he trained an entire generation of borderland folklorists and imbued them with his strong sense of the unfairness of ethnic discrimination.
Paredes's seminal importance was recognized in 1989 when he became the first Mexican American to receive the prestigious Charles Frankel Prize from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a lifetime devoted to a deeper understanding of the humanities. In the following year he was awarded the Order of the Aguila Azteca by the Mexican government for his work in preserving border culture and for his lifelong defense of human rights. In 1991 he was again honored by Mexico, with the Order of José de Escandón. Two years later The University of Texas dedicated to him a two-day symposium titled "Regional Identity and Cultural Tradition: The Tejano Contribution." It quite properly included a folkloric concert in his honor.
Subsequent to his retirement from teaching Paredes actively continued to research, write, and publish. In 1990 he came out with George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel, followed in the next year by a book of his poems, Between Two Worlds. In 1993 he had two publications: Uncle Remus con chile, a compilation of Mexicano border humor, and a scholarly collection of articles, Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border. In 1994 his The Hammon and the Beans and Other Stories was published and four years later his final work of fiction, The Shadow came out. On Cinco de Mayo 1999 Américo Paredes died after a lengthy illness.

___we make the pages of "El Mañana

2009-07-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

___

Gracias a la gran respuesta de los participantes, el taller se extendió por otras cuatro semanas, se planeó en un principio que concluyera el 30 de junio

FOTO: KARIME NEVÁREZ / EL MAÑANA

Desde principios de junio, el Colegio Comunitario ha llevado a cabo un taller de escritura acerca de los Chicanos para promover la cultura México Americana en Laredo.

Gracias a la gran respuesta de los participantes, el taller se extendió por otras cuatro semanas, se planeó en un principio que concluyera el 30 de junio.

"Desde el primer día, hemos promediado alrededor de 20 participantes, ahora hemos llegado al punto de tener demasiados escritos para revisar y criticar y debido a eso hemos extendido este exitoso taller hasta el 30 de julio", dijo Carlos Flores, instructor.

Las clases continuarán impartiéndose en el Fort McIntosh de LCC, en el edificio Adkins, cada martes y jueves de las 7:00 a las 8:30 de la noche, está abierto y es gratis para todo público.

Como proyecto inicial del recién formado instituto 'Don Américo Paredes of Mexican American Studies' de LCC, el éxito del taller augura buenos resultados para el estudio de los estudios México Americanos de Laredo.

De acuerdo a la Universidad de Texas A & M, Américo Paredes, una vez cuando era profesor de esa universidad, fue una voz de la conciencia chicana en las años 60 y ganó estudios México Americanos a través de su desarrollo en el contexto oral y la literatura.

Armando X. López, un abogado local y participante del taller, quien recientemente escribió 10 minutos de una obra basados en su sobrino de 11 años, fue un estudiante de Paredes en UT.

"El fue muy entusiasta, una vez me dijo que nuestra única tragedia como México Americanos es que nunca escribimos nada acerca de ello, sólo cantamos o decimos cosas y este tipo de trabajo en este taller nos está ayudando a hacer justo eso", manifestó.

El taller de escritura ha contado con una buena mezcla de gente, que incluyen maestros de escuela, profesores, bibliotecarios, abogados, doctores.

Julia Vera, actriz de Hollywood, quien ha actuado en shows como Will and Grace, X-Files ha sido parte de este taller.

"La libertad de expresión es un derecho maravilloso, uno de los caminos para alimentar eso es teniendo un grupo como este, cunado lees lo que escribes enfrente de una audiencia te arriesgas a la critica, pero esta bien, ya sea una critica constructiva o destructiva no importa, la idea es que te das permiso a ti mismo a expresar tus sentimientos e ideas", dijo.

María Eugenia López, instructora de ingles de San Agustine y autora de El Mero Mero, una comedia acerca de un hombre que piensa que el mundo entero esta en contra de él, comentó que es importante mantener vivo el arte Chicano.

"Cuando yo era más joven, la palabra Chicano tenía una connotación negativa, era una etiqueta para México Americanos que habían ido a la cárcel o estaban borrachos, pero eso es lo que yo adoro acerca del vocabulario, las palabras cambian con la sociedad", expresó.

__a Great Work in playwriting

2009-07-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

___Maria Eugenia Lopez recently presented to us her first draft for a short, ten minute play. It is a delightful piece and borders on becoming our first musical presentation of the session. It contains three musical numbers writter especially by the authoress to enhance her presentation.
___the play concern a very "macho" working man who takes great delight and pleasure in enjoying nightly evenings at a social club with his friends and several very sociable ladies. The songs come in to play to define the values and situations of the man.
___in the climatic scene, the wife arrives, child in hand and manages to pull a switcheroo with her dear husband. She will become the one who gets to enjoy the nightlife while her companion will man the house and child.

___future plans

2009-07-08T09:05:00.001-07:00

___tonight we did not "read" a play but rather we spet our class time preparing for the future and discussing ways to better prepare our products. the plays that we write must be of the best quality and socially relevent. Mr. Floes presented ideas that have been proven to provide effective strategies which all playwriters must follow.
___several visitors attended our session, some from the college's Administration and Faculty and some visitors who might join our corp of playwriters. Another pending item which was discussed was the upcoming social affair to be held at the residence of Ana Laura Salinas. Clothing resrictions will be in effect.

___Interesting

2009-07-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

___we had an exciting time tonight as we read and offered constructive critism to an exciting script presented by Marcos A. Franco. The play concerns a situation which is all too common in our city, an ESL classroom. The students are concerned with becoming proficient in the use of the English Language in order to be more capable of passing the required state tests. The Teachers and Administrators are under great pressure to achieve success and thus undergo much drama and some humor in achieving their goal.

___my turn

2009-07-01T21:35:00.000-07:00

___i presented my major script which is actually about a 30-35 minute project and is entitled "Un dia en la vida de . . .". I wrote this play back in July, 1973 while i was still a student in the local colleges. The material might be dated but it presents some problems which are still relevent.
___it is about two brothers which have somewhat of an identity problem. Even though they come from the same family and the same home environment, they have diverse and different attitudes. Their struggle at home, at school and in their social element is depicted in the first three scenes.
___how they resolve their dilema leads to a somewhat simple solution.
___this play has been performed on two different occasions by students of LJC, once in the 70 and once in the 80's.

___two great efforts

2009-07-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

___this past Thursday, June 25 we got to read and enjoy two great scripts from two great storytellers
___first up was Armando X. Lopez script which was entitled Julio's Night in the Dark. It is a family's home situation caused by a missing parent. It is humorous while still mysterious in it's development. The climax is very surprising and at the same time enlighting.
___Raquel Valle-Senties presented a very pleasing vignette of a situation which traps us almost everyday. Two ladies are stuck on the International Bridge and engage in a very revealing conversation. Their attitudes are expressed quite vividly. As they finally cross the Bridge and have an encounter with the Custom agent, they still find time to enjoy some humor at his expense. The name of the piece is "Nothing to Declare".

___Party Time

2009-07-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

___another method that we use to build camaradarie (kamaradas) is by getting together every so often to share a few meal items, perhaps down several drinks while we enjoy some literature works to further expand our knowledge of the topic at hand.
___Saturday, June 27, a bunch of us got together at Bill Wisner's residence to partake of some delicious Pizza, furnished by our Director Carlos N. Flores, and several delicious treats of fruits and sweets.
___while there, we managed to read through Carlos Morton's classic play "El Jardin" and then we discussed it's many intricancies. The party broke up late as usual.

___First Read

2009-07-01T07:10:00.000-07:00

___going back to our very first read as a group, on or about the week of June 9-11, we enjoyed very much his first effort that Mr. Robert Gutierrez (nee Ramon Serrano) submitted. His majestic first work is entitled "La Santa y la Muerte" and depicts a sinister scene that occurs in a hospital. Somehow the Priest and the Social Worker manage to diffuse a very difficult situation. All in all, it is a very promising effort.

___Rolling along

2009-07-01T06:13:00.000-07:00

___last night we had our last meeting for the month of June and we had an opportunity to read through two very comical (?) and entertaining first drafts of what we hope will be material that we can mount and pub;ish.
___the first one was a ten-minute effort by Gentlemen Joe McCarry with the perplexing title of "Innocent Pay $11; Bets $9". In this effort, Maximo, Lucita, and Calixto struggle thru a somewhat difficult relationship which has an unexpected ending.
__second play was by Arturo Guajardo in which he depicts a very comical classroom scene. His delightful and charming students struggle to grasp a somewhat difficult concept due to language development problems common to the Laredo poplulace. The title is "Special De;ivery from Spain".
___we have come to the end of the first summer session. Our group has been very productive in turning out scripts to read and critique. Future plans are to define the direction in which our group will proceed. Vidoe taping of some "reads" are a distinct possibly in the near future

___"Ya era Tiempo"

2009-06-29T17:33:00.001-07:00

___Recently Laredo Community College was awarded a grant under the auspices of the Americo Paredes Foundation to institute a Program under which our students can receive an Associate Degree in Chicano Studies. As a direct result of this grant, one of the first features of this program is the development of a Bilingual Teatro for Laredo, patterned somewhat on the philosophy of the "Teatro Campesino" founded in 1965 by Luis Valdez. Carlos N. Flores was given the assignment to spearhead this project.

____the Author

2009-06-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

___Carlos N. Flores is the author of "House on Hueco". He has been teaching English Literature at LJC/LCC for many years.

___the Beginning

2009-06-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

___this is the beginning, We hope it will grow into something big. We will contribute to write the story of Our People. We meet every Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7:00 pm in the Arena Theater in the Adkins Building of Laredo Community College. Everyone is welcomed.