Ana Castillo Books

Ana Castillo is an inspiration/orguyo to all Latin women. A role model for the latin women, who still fined them selves confined to their social imprisionment and traditional impairment. In this book, Ana Castillo through a collection of essays touches on a wide range of controversial issues, which many Latinas-surprisingly-will fined they relate.Castillo writes on topics; such as, Machismo, a women's sexuality and lesbianism. Castillo also writes about her experiences and struggles with society's exceptances in the oppression of the Latin women. Trough her struggles, she stays true to her values and never conforms to social pressures.Castillo a true woman in every senses of the word, resilient, bountiful, and amorous. There is no doubt in my mind the Castillo intended this book to give voice, strength, and hope through her words of inspiration and examples of triumph. To those women not yet free, because of their social and religious imprissonment to submission.I recommend this book to any women who wishes to be enlightened, inspired and empowered by Ana Castillo's ideology.

Massacre of the Dreamers is Ana Castillo's transdisciplinary book about the deconstruction of Mexic pallocentric "pyramids," as she herself puts it. By re(w)riting history, Castillo reconfigures the role of the Amerindian/Xicana/Mexican woman, allowing her to draw strength from Mesoamerican female goddesses. In this remarkable text, furthermore, Castillo employs her "own raw materials" (104) as an antidote to male-centered cosmic consciousness that operates in binary frames of dualisms, dichotomies, and schisms. In resurecting her spiritual mother goddesses, Castillo, like Anzaldua and Cisneros, reinserts "the forsaken feminine into our consciousness" (12). By exposing the manner in which the xicana has been "gagged" for hundreds of years, Castillo rejects colonization and mapps a xicana history with a difference that allows the Amerindian woman's various selves to coexist simultaneously, reinforcing her identity

It would be impossible to tell what this book did for me, especially during my days in law school. As a Chicana I felt isolated. I was often made to feel intellectually inferior. Castillo's brilliance soared like a flame to rescue my quickly freezing soul. If it weren't for this book I think I would have not survived that alienating environment bound to make me fail. She is not rhetorical but driven with reasoning. When women of color explain themselves we are dismissed as simply bitter. This book explained why I would have the right to be bitter and anger but why I must push forward. It saved my life.

Castillo has obviously tapped into her power for this one. Her fiction is moving, thought-provoking, angering, sometimes even humorous... but this essay collection is even more impressive. I'm sure some will consider her xicanista views extreme, but Castillo calls it as she sees it.

To begin with, I will announce that this wonderful collection is coming back out in print. This came to my attention in my panic to get copies for a class I am teaching on Women of Color poets. These are the poems of an original voice. If anyone with a sense of the struggle of Mexicans in this country reads this book and remained unmoved I would wonder if they had a soul. Much more powerful, is the powerful message of a woman whose voice was previously unheard. Castillo's internal assonance, her skill as a poet to make the most difficult moves look easy on the page is among her assets as a poet out of this generation of activists. The fact that Castillo's later success with her novels "seemed so easy" is actually an indication of how she perseveres. I will continue to use this collection until retirement and then I will pass it on to my grandchildren--to remember that it wasn't easy at all.

To begin with, I will announce that this wonderful collection is coming back out in print. This came to my attention in my panic to get copies for a class I am teaching on Women of Color poets. These are the poems of an original voice. If anyone with a sense of the struggle of Mexicans in this country reads this book and remained unmoved I would wonder if they had a soul. Much more powerful, is the powerful message of a woman whose voice was previously unheard. Castillo's internal assonance, her skill as a poet to make the most difficult moves look easy on the page is among her assets as a poet out of this generation of activists. The fact that Castillo's later success with her novels "seemed so easy" is actually an indication of how she perseveres. I will continue to use this collection until retirement and then I will pass it on to my grnadchildren--to remember it wasn't easy at all.

Since the time this book of poems first came out in 1988 it has spoken to me. I am not the daughter of a Toltec but of an Ottoman Yet, I related. I discovered the book in a bookstore in Berkeley in the eighties. While I felt so far from home, I connected with the poems that spoke of a daughter's yearning for her father's power in such a modest way, in such modest ways. I found the copy I brought back with me the other day which I thought I had lost. I will pass it on to my daughter.

I enjoyed the realism of this poetry, as a writer myself I know what good and bad times are, and when you write about them, you pour your soul into it! I can tell that is what Ana Castillo did!!!!! I loved it, hope you do too!

These essays by modern writers on the Virgen de Guadalupe are incredible. It is so wonderful to read these writers thoughts and feelings on the Guadalupe. Since La Lupita is such a cultural icon both here in the US and in Mexico, I feel this is an important book. La Lupita permeates the consciousness of the Mexican and Chicano people and this book gives you a glimpse of that consciousness. This book is an education and a joy to have. You will read it over and over again.

This marvelous book provides well-written, engaging essays and stories by a playwright, a commedian, a novelist, a historian, an anthropologist, and others who explain who the Virgin of Guadalupe is and why Mexicans, Central Americans, and others of the American Southwest venerate her and pray to her as their main contact with the Divine. The writers, almost all distinguished Latinos, suggest that the Virgin of Guadalupe is a direct descendant of the ancient gods and goddesses of central America, and that furthermore, she is a primary feminine face of the Divine. She may be the only appearance of the Virgin Mary to a poor, illiterate person of an indigenous people, and like the Indians of Mexico, whom she visited, she is dark-skinned. (She is also pregnant.) Her appearance to an Indian man, Juan Diego, shows her empathy with blue-collar workers and migrant laborers and with the oppressed and down-trodden. Therefore, she receives a tremendous outpouring of love and adoration, especially on the December anniversary of her appearance to Juan Diego. Hundreds of thousands in central America, Mexico, and the American Southwest hold her dear as a feminine Divine figure who is the warm, personal confidante and helper of women, the abused, and evolutionaries. On making her acquaintance, famous essayist Nancy Mairs converted to Catholicism--a feminist version of Catholicism. On reading this book, I, myself, a Protestant gringa, went right out and bought myself a humble grocery-store candle portraying Guadalupe and began burning it, in solidarity with poor and oppressed women everywhere, and to present my own, personal concerns to the Divine. Since, I've met other women who have responded in the very same way. This book expands one's understanding of culture and history and also enriches one's spirituality.

If you loved the previous entries in the Bowery Books Poetry Series as much as I did, then you've probably been anxiously awaiting this new anthology. I can tell you that it does not disappoint! This is a really interesting read with work that spans all emotions. Several poems have been read and re-read many times already! I especially liked the pieces from Sarah Herrington and Mary Reilly. I can definitely recommend this to any lover of poetry.

Every now and then you luck into a beautifully produced book which changes your frame of reference. "De Leon" is as close to telling us about who we are and what made our nation as any I've read.
You don't have to be an historian or a scholar or someone with a particular interest in Mexican American history to realize that the De Leon story, in Crimm's telling, is as engaging, exciting, and moving as any part of our American story. "De Leon" offers an understanding not just of a piece of family history but of a whole landscape, storied but unfamiliar to many of us. Highly recommended!

Sin duda este es un libro que merece mas que los cinco estrellas, merece un numero como los tantos que tiene en su vestido gloriousa o mas bien los que existen en el universo. Esta collecion de ensayos, cuentos, poemas y hasta obra dramatica por various escritores famosos dan ofrrendas a La Guadalupana, La Diosa de Mexico, pero como los autores dicen, mas bien por todo Latino America. La version original del libro es en ingles. Los varios autores de este libro tienen algo en commun, saben el poder de La Guadalupana por primer experiencia o por otros conocidos. Aqui tienes tan diversos colaboradores como Sandra Cisneros y Luis Rodriquez, Nancy Mairs y Marcela Guijosa entre otros. Tambien puede leer los pensamientos de personas de otros paises como Rosario Ferre de Puerto Rico, Franciso Goldman quien estuvo en Centroamerica en los anos 80's, Yeye'Woro Luisah Teish con su perspectivo desde New Orleans y la religion Yoruba. Tambien puede descubrir los grandes de la lectura como Octavio Paz, Elena Poniatowski la gran ensayista , novelista y periodista y el voz de la cultura popular en Mexico, Carlos Monsivais. En breve aqui tiene una collecion de brillantes escritores de nuestro tiempo. No solo hay variedad y diferente estilos, pero ideas profundas que extende la imaginacion. Los interpretes hablan sobre todo que La Diosa, que aparecio en Tepeyac, al indio Juan Diego en 1531 tiene credito para hacer, es una historia extraordinario. Se menciona la conecion con la diosa que existia antes que los Espanoles vinieron a America. En el mismo sitio donde los Mexicas veneraban Tonantzin, hoy en dia, cada 12 de Deciembre millones de personas vienen de varios partes del mundo, muchas veces de rodillas a dar honor a la Guadalupana. Viene la gente por sus intenciones, demonstrando fe en sus convicciones, apasionante pidiendo celestial intercesiones. Atribuyen milagrosos fenomenos por sus humildes ofrezcas. Tambien se habla como la Virgen de Guadalupe se ha transformado desde principios a una mujer moderna que a estado por los lados de cuasas como los soldados de Emiliano Zapata durante la revolucion Mexicana, en las huelgas de California durante las 60's con Cesar Chavez, mas reciente ha sido subversiva con las feministas Chicanas y los disidentes Chicanos, y con los undocumentados cuando cruzan en busca de una vida mejor, por todos lados y todas partes donde la gente lucha por los derechos humanos. El culto de la patrona de Mexico ha crecido, unos dicen, hasta mas que La Iglesia Catolica. En La Virgen muchos pueden tener la madre de Dios en su campo, pidiendo perdona por sus pecados, sabiendo que La Virgen puede hablar con su hijo por ellos. La madre de Mexico es mas que la madre de Dios, tambien representa el centro de la familia Mexicana. Como parte de esa familia aqui se habla de todos, los artistas que pintan su imagen en los murales por lugares tan distintos como Chicago, Los Angeles, Nuevo Mexico y la DF, los pandilleros que llevan tatuas por la espalda para protecion, la familia de La Guadalupana no discrmina entre sus ninos, todos son parte de su bendicion para los que se dedican a ella. Los testimonios estan aqui tambien, los milagrosos cambios de vida, el espiritu y las caracteristicos de personas que cambian tan dramaticamente que no mas pueden decir que lo deben a la dedicacion a La Virgen de Guadalupe. Este libro es mas que lectura por escritores ingenio, este libro es parte del misterio de esta vida que nunca se entiende completamente. Aqui tiene unas llaves, abre la puerta y conozca la Virgencita Morena, la Guadalupe-Tonantzin, la felicidad de Mexico, La Diosa de las Americas, La Virgen de Guadalupe.

I have long been a fan of Ana Castillo's work. Her venture into the world of young readers is powerful and haunting. A must addition to anyone's library and a wonderful gift to anyone with children regardless of their age!

I have long been a fan of Ana Castillo's work; this venture into the world of younger readers is powerful and haunting. A wonderful addition to anyone's library.

I was first introduced to Ana Castillo, when I read her marvelous novel, "So Far From God" ("Tan Lejos de Dios"), which was a journey through magical realism, Chicana identity and the experience of people who have lived and cultivated the land as far back as ten generations. This was a true example of the indigenous experience in the United States. Totally beautiful and powerful......

"My Father Was a Toltec" doesn't fail to disappoint. This collection of poems looks at the Chicana/indigenous Mexican/female experience in the United States, and in Mexican culture. Ana writes in English, Spanish, Spanglish and sprinkles it with words in Toltec (the culture of her father). Castillo, an avid writer and practicioner of santeria (a mixture of the Catholic and indigenous ritualistic beliefs), truly has a connection to this duel (even triple) identity. Castillo grew up in a Mexican neighborhood, in the South side of Chicago, and finally took a trip with her mother to their native Mexico, when she was older (this is captured in her poetry).

I definitely reccomend this book. Ana Castillo is an auther more readers should know about!! This is such an important example of Latina literature. Those from the culture will identify with her, and those non-Latinos and non-Spanish speakers will definitely receive an education.

With the increasing understanding of the importance of exercise, has also come the understanding that the old fashioned gym like Rocky might have used, upstairs over the pool hall, has given way to places designed to attract the upper scale clientelle of today.

Ms. Castillo has carefully collected a set of photographs of newly built spa and health clubs from around the world. Literally from all over the world: Australia, Vienna, Canada, China, all over Europe. These spa's represent what the best architects are doing in this area. The book is an idea book for people interested in the area. This would include no only architects, but people like hotel management, spa operators, or even the home owner looking to put in his own unit.

For me two points really stand out in these designs:

1. The integration of the new, almost exoctic spa into a standard hotel design, or perhaps fit into an existing building of any age or architecture.

2. The large use of water. This can be swiming pools, fountains, hot tubs or whatever. It seems that water is an integral part of the new spa.

Beautiful photographs carefully selected to illustrate what can be done.