Writers of Color 50 Books Challenge

14. Gustavo Arellano, ¡Ask a Mexican!

I'm not a regular reader of the weekly that runs ¡Ask a Mexican! The few times that I encountered it, I never quite knew what to make of it.

Arellano publishes the most racist questions that are submitted to him, and then instead of arguing that Mexicans aren't like that, turns the question around on the questioner. Who is this gabacho to think his culture is so great, what with flushing his used toilet paper into the ocean instead of putting it in the trash? In Arellano's responses, the question is never why do Mexicans do what they do; instead, it is why don't gabachos do the same? Or, depending on the question, why don't gabachos notice that they do do the same? But even while he turns a scathing eye on gabacho culture, Arellano does the same to Mexican and Mexican-American cultures. Arellano points out Mexico's racist past and present -- with special attention for Guatemalans, Chinese Mexicans, and hierarchies of skin tone and heritage -- and he has more than a few sharp words for privilege among Chicanos, the sexism in Mexican culture, the multiple roots of Black/Latino tensions in the U.S., and the resentments between various immigrant groups (Latino and non-Latino; documented and undocumented).

In addition to collecting his favorite letters and answers, Arellano has included essays on various topics of Mexican and Mexican-American history and pop culture -- lengthy pieces about topics dear to him which don't fit in the newspaper column format. So even if you are a regular reader of the column, there's more here than what you've seen already.


15. Cynthia Kadohata, Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam.

The adventures of Cracker, a U.S. Army Scout Dog in the Vietnam War. After a few initial traumatic chapters, wherein Cracker is separated from her best-beloved boy and sold to the U.S. Army, Cracker settles into one of the Best! Jobs! Ever! (from a dog's perspective) -- having important, meaningful work; lots of exercise; lots of attention; and a very close bond with her handler. She detects snipers and booby traps, saves many U.S. lives and limbs, and even helps rescue POWs.

The war is very sanitized -- there are only passing references to the ugliness and confusion of guerilla wars, and similarly to the U.S.'s moral conduct. There's nothing here that's inconsistent with a reader getting better information on those topics from other sources -- this book does not take the position that the U.S. was good or moral in that war, and provides plenty of hints that it wasn't -- but it does skate lightly past those things.

What this book is about is one dog and one very young, Scandinavian-American soldier who becomes the dog's handler. Usually when an author writes from a dog's POV, I get all eye-rolly about the patronizing anthropmorphicity of it all, but nearly every time Kadohata shifted to Cracker's POV, I had to laugh and read it out loud to my partner. Kadohata gets dogs. And she gets this dog in particular: an ultra-confident, 110 German Shepherd bitch with dominance issues. When Cracker sits for a treat, she doesn't think of it as asking for a treat, but as an announcement that "she'll take another wiener." When kenneled in disgrace after stealing a steak, Cracker feels no disgrace, just the warm glow of mmmm, steak, and when chastised by her still-sulky handler the next morning -- he had to eat C-rations because of her disobedience -- Cracker's reaction is mmmm, C-rations.

Those who have been previously traumatized by children's books about best-beloved dogs will want to know answers to some very important questions. As a courtesy to those people, highlight what you need to know, and ignore the rest:

1. Does Cracker die? No, Cracker does not die.
   
2. Does Cracker get a happy ending? Yes, Cracker gets a happy ending.
   
3. Do the other dogs get happy endings? No, none of the other dogs get happy endings. Not even one of them. Only Cracker gets a happy ending.

Okay, even with that out of the way, I should reiterate that there's some very upsetting stuff at the beginning and near the end (oh, c'mon, it's a war book about a dog -- what do you expect, really?). And yes, the ending made me cry.

Books about dogs, I tell you. I hate these things. Even when they're good books that I like quite a lot (like this one was), irrespective of whether the dog dies or not (highlight above if you need to know), I still hate them. Tearjerkers, all.


16. Chrystos, In Her I Am.

Sexy, sexy lesbian sex poetry. Butches, femmes, packing, teasing, and red silk dresses lying in tatters on the floor. Mrrow.

I didn't realize until I hit the afterward that Chrystos published this collection as a counterstrike in the lesbian sex wars, that they were intended as an announcement of alliance with the leatherdyke community and against the "Feminism is the theory, Lesbianism is the practice" feminist academics. (Coming late into the scene as I did -- around the time this volume was published -- those wars never made sense to me: the leatherscene seemed as sterling an example of the principles of feminism as one might ever want to see. But I digress...) These poems are a passionate account of women who like sex, and who like their sex with other women.

In the forward, Chrystos talks briefly about her dual identities as Native and as a Lesbian:

I live on a razor: I am only intermittently cherished by the mainstream Lesbian gang, who are primarily caucasian (& not interested in my burning concern for First Nations' struggles), while in Native communities homophobia is inevitable because of the influence of the christian churches     The only time all of my identities come home is during the yearly Gathering we have for Indigenous Lesbians, Gays, and our lovers & friends     I live from year to year on those five-day celebrations     (I will comment that Indian Country is becoming less homophobic faster than Lesbianism is coming to understand, rather than appropriate, Native spirituality and culture)

The intersection comes up again in her afterward, in which she discusses outlaw sexualities, ethics, sadism, de Sade, colonization, and the leather culture. There is some lovely stuff in there, and I shan't try to summarize it.

She concludes with this request:

Over the years, I've sadly watched women-only spaces decrease until I only know of 2 or 3 worldwide     Our freedom to speak to each other has been co-opted     We have no control over who reads our work, but I want to be clear that this work is a gift given to other Lesbians     I don't want to be used by those who do not share my oppression or who are not working to end it