Reading in Spanglish

Weekend Roundup!

Leal Award Winner Announced :: via University of California – Demetria Martínez has been awarded the 2011 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature.

What is Latino? :: Maria Browning discusses the soon to be published The Other Latin@: Writing Against a Singular Identity. Also, a search for “Latino” on Amazon results in like, over 1,000 hits! And, it includes mainstream books! OMG There are like so many books about them LOLZ. Sigh. I think that the news flash for this book isn’t that it is supposed to point out that Latinos are a diverse group, or to further Other-ize us, but that the essays explore identity formation in the Latino community, a fraught topic I know I have struggled with. P.S., there’s a tiny excerpt on the University of Arizona Press website linked above.

Another Award Winner :: via The University Star – Alex Sanchez accepted the 2011 Tomás Rivera Book Award for his book, Bait.

Watching TV in Spanglish:: via the New York Times – NYT writes about Telemundo’s plans to incorporate more English, invite non-Latino guests to the new Cristina show, plus other programming. Grab your sombrero and dale un grito, folks –  of course the article isn’t complete with the words salsa and saucy. And who says Univsion doesn’t throw English into the mix? I distinctly remember this hysterical Tom Hanks spot from a few months ago:

Weekend Sonrisa – So here’s your weekend funny. The other day at a meeting with the group I volunteer with, we were actually able to crack jokes while discussing how the immigration law is affecting students. Because if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry. Full disclosure: the Colbert Report always cracks me up, anyway!