Nuestra Palabra: Latinos Having Their Say

In observation of Women's History Month, Nuestra Palabra: Latinos Having Their Say is very proud to bring to Houston Veronica Chapa with her new book, MALINALLI.

It is powerful that a Mexican-American writer brings to life a more profound view of this very controversial historical figure from Mexico.

Even the title of the book is a powerful act because it celebrates the indigenous name of the woman who would come to also be called Doña Marina and Malinche, among other names.

To take the observation to the next level, we are also proud to work with Houston City Council to name March 25 MALINALLI Day in Houston Texas.This will include a proclamation on the day of the day at City Hall at 2 PM. The reading for the public is at 7 PM at the HCC Eastend Compus 6815 Rusk.

We will also present Houston Latina voices during this lineup and work with a Latina Book Club. We want to fundraise enough to give 30 of their members and community members a free copy of the boo and make them special guests that evening.

Additional copies will also be available that evening and at our online bookstore: www.NuestraPalabra.org.

Make sure that this powerful book winds up in this powerful evening winds up in the hands of more of our community. This is a wonderful way to celebrate Women's History Month and to edify the next generation of Latina writers and thinkers.

We are fundraising to raise $450 to donate 30 copies of The Opposite of Breathing is Cement: Poetry & Prose by Icess Fernandez Rojas, a Nuestra Palabra alum. We will donate those books to the Latina Book Club members who we are working with for a reading by Icess on February 26, 2025, as part of our 2025 season.

The club wanted to focus on Afro Latina literature during February for Black History Month. NP is proud to have been sharing Afro Latino literature for decades.

We also look forward to working with this and other Latina and Latino book clubs, and even forming more.

Our goal for this first collaboration is:

Please pitch in to support this powerful way to spread art and culture.

Pitch in to purchase a set of 30 copies of the Nuestra Palabra Journal, designed for NP by Monday Paper.

We would love to put these in the hands of the first Latina Book Club we are working with in 2025. We're collaborating with them for a a reading in February. We love that they love books and art. Of course, Nuestra Palabra also wants them to feel inspired to share their own stories. Help us make that happen.

Our NP Journal is a work of art in its own right. It is completely sustainable. It is made from sugar cane paper and soy ink. A grey thread stitches the book together. It carries the NP logo on the front, and when you open it, you will see our leading paradigm: Tell Your Story! 

That's followed by beautiful, blank sheets of bright white paper.

After book club members fill its pages, we hope they will get back to us and share their writing. We'll help them choose a piece or pieces to share on our broadcasts or at one of our live events. Or perhaps one of their drawings leads to a print that complements an author we feature. 

Our community deserves a work of art to carry its stories.

Pitch in to fuel more voices.

Help dual credit students take The House on Mango Street home!

Professor Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, teaches Rhetorical Analysis in Houston, Texas. He regularly includes the classic novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Yes, he and the Librotraficantes enjoyed smuggling it into underground libraries when Arizona banned Mexican American Studies in 2012. But the real goal is for that book to find its way into family libraries or to spark the process by which a family begins to tell its story.

Pitch in to help pay for a classroom set of 25 copies of The House on Mango Street, so that dual credit students in Houston can keep the books that they studied.

These books will go home with students who have analyzed, read the work, and written papers about the book.

Of course, NP champions public libraries and will ensure that their library allies have access to books. However, it is also vital for students who are inspired by books feel a literal ownership by not just reading the book, but embracing it, underlining passages that blow their mind, folding pages if they so choose, or saving it pristine, but knowing that it is always within arms reach.

 Ultimately, we are not just selling books. We are spreading legacy and stories, too.

Join us so that one day, these students will not just remember the essay they wrote, the discussions they had, and the grade they received, but they will be able to tell others, “This book made such a difference in my life, and people united through my professor to make sure that I could have a copy. And now, I want to spread this love of books to you.”

Profe Ron is a high school educator, community organizer, and veteran. He lives and breathes for his students, including joining the Librotraficantes in Austin to champion Mexican American Studies.

Today, we ask you to pitch into our GoFundMe campaign so we can provide him with a classroom set of 25 copies of Hecho en Tejas: An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature edited by Dagoberto Gilb.

Additionally, Nuestra Palabra will provide him with classroom visits by writers in the book. We can guarantee that because Nuestra Palabra founder and director Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, is included in the book. Also, as part of our upcoming Global Reading Series, sponsored by The Brown Foundation, we will be bringing the editor of the anthology, Dagoberto Gilb, to Houston with his new books. He created and edited that anthology, and we will make sure he meets with Profe Ron and his students.

Profe Ron also wants access to these books to be able to gift them at his discretion as a reward to students who are embracing reading and writing and need just a little push, some recognition or reward, to impel to continue to pursue the American Dream through books and education.

Bayland Community Center, part of Harris County Precinct 4, is now the home of the Librotraficante Arc of the book, under the leadership of County Commissioner Lesley Briones.

This was the bookshelf custom-built by Librotraficante The Crusher Tony Garcia, owner of SDC Construction after we returned from the 2012 Librotraficante Caravan to smuggle back into Tucson books from the Mexican American Studies Curriculum outlawed by the Arizona legislature. This raised awareness and support for the students of Tucson suing the state and eventually overturning that law.

The students of Tucson created a mini mural for the Librotraficantres, which fits perfectly in the middle of the book arc. The outside was painted and decorated by families at MECA.

Help Nuestra Palabra raise the funds to acquire the classroom set of 25 signed copies of the poetry collection The Eaters of Flowers by Texas Poet Laureate ire' ne lara silva. She is Nuestra Palabra's first author of the week. You can find out more about her and the book by watching Episode #1 of the NP YouTube show and visiting www.NuestraPalabra.org.

Nuestra Palabra also plans to organize programming around the works, including visits by writers to the community center.

Join us to make it rain libros in book deserts.

www.NuestraPalabra.org

TTake2: GoFundMe does not generate tickets sales or pledge levels for donations. We apologize for the confusion. We will transfer everything related to our ticket sales for our October 15 fundraiser with Sandra Cisneros to our website: www.NuestraPalabra.org. If, due to the mix up, you would like a refund of your donation, just let us know.

This GoFundMe campaign is dedicated to raising operating funds for the Nuestra Palabra’s XXV anniversary season. Here is what we are about. Thank you in advance for you donation.

Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say has been cultivating a voice for Latino writers since 1998.

Nuestra Palabra Cultivates Community Through:

* Readings

* Education

* Media: The NP Radio Show on Multiplatforms

* Hispanic Heritage Month Celebrations

Nuestra Palabra is also now a fiscal sponsor for over a dozen arts collectives.

Your donation will fuel our readings, school visits, Latino Family Libraries, Librotraficante Under Ground Libraries, broadcasts, development of Mexican American Studies, and our campaigns for Intellectual Freedom and Freedom of Speech.

Founded by writer, activist, and professor Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, the group defied the notion that our community was not interested in its stories, its history, or its culture. NP is the first reading series for Latino writers to share their work in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, but, in order to serve our community-we do not simply create art for art's sake. We cultivate community cultural capital.

NP's reading series began April 1998 in the party hall of Chapultepec Restaurant, which soon became too small for our events. We moved to the Talento Bilingue de Houston Theatre, and then spaces all over Houston. In 1999, the group added the Nuestra Palabra Radio Show on KPFT 90.1 FM, which is still on the air, adding multiplatform broadcasts online. From 2002 to 2009 NP began organizing the Latino Book and Family Festival, filling the George R. Brown Convention Center with over 35,000 at its peak.

In 2012, five veteran members of NP: Liana Lopez, Bryan Parras, Lupe Mendez, Laura Torres, and Tony Diaz, united to form the Librotraficante Caravan to defy Arizona officials’ banning of Mexican American Studies and smuggled books about our prohibited history, culture, and stories into underground libraries throughout the Southwest, forming a key part of the national movement to support the educators, lawyers, activists, writers, and community members in Tucson who united to overturn that unjust law.

Just as NP has planted the seeds for talent: writers such as playwright Alvaro Saar Rios made his debut at NP as did Axios National Race and Justice Reporter Russell Contreras, poet Dr. Carolina Monsivias, professor Icess Fernandez, Texas Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez, Houston Poet Laureate Leslie Contreras Schwartz, and multifaceted writer Jasminne Mende. NP has also cultivated community cultural capital by becoming a fiscal sponsor for over one dozen art collectives including Tintero Press, Danza Azteca Taxcayolotl, Houston Artists, among others.

NP has been pivotal in developing the long-term growth of the Latino Community and Culture by helping to quantify Community Cultural Capital. This has taken the form of helping to write a grant for ALMAAHH that was funded for $1 million by Houston Endowment for a study that will provide a plan for creating a state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary museum and cultural center that addresses the needs and vision of the Latino Community. NP has also been pivotal in The BIPOC Network and Fund’s work to identify and support BIPOC community arts groups and individual artists.

We ask you now to donate as NP enters its 25th season, accelerating Community Cultural Capital. We are launching readings from the summer into the fall, culminating with a special visit from literary giant Sandra Cisneros Oct. 15, 2023, in a lineup celebrating intellectual freedom, with poet Jan Beatty, visual artist Carlos Hernandez, hosted by Tony Diaz, El Librotraficante, joined by banned writers from Tejas.

We are proud to have paved the way for many. We are ready to lead Houston into a new era celebrating our voices, our culture, and intellectual freedom, unidos!

More information about Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say at www.NuestraPalabra.org

Thank you in advance for your donation.