bird ave bits

do you remember this song? i loved it back in the day!
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paula bohince: I think it is one narrative suggesting a larger one.
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brenda cárdenas: There is definitely an aesthetic, artistic stance behind my code switching
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javier o. huerta: ...I went to see Lorna Dee Cervantes read in the Heller Multicultural Lounge at UC Berkeley. She explained how she grew up in San Francisco on a street called Bird. It was actually an avenue so the street sign read “Bird Ave.” She thought it interesting, she said, that the street sign was bilingual.
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i don't add spanish to my poems to "spice" up the poem, or to bewilder non-spanish speakers. i only keep the spanish words/ phrases that come to me during the writing/ revision stages. the spanish is the next step in the narrative, in the music, etc. i don't italicize the spanish or "explain" it. if the reader doesn't read spanish, i am willing to lose the reader for a few words or a line or two. i trust the rest of the poem will catch the reader.
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richard rodriguez: The suburban grid belies America's disorder. Grandma's knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag is so full of meds it sounds like a snake rattle. Grandma shares a secret addiction with her drug-addled dude of a grandson, whose dad prowls the Home Depot parking lot in his Japanese pickup, looking to hire a couple of Mexicans to clear out some dry scrub.
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gertrude stein says: a rose is a rose is a rose.
josé montoya says: arroz is arroz is arroz.
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Report from the Temple of Confessions in Old Chicano English
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some might say i am interested in bewildering non-spanish speakers. not true. i'm interested in privileging spanish speakers. big difference, no?
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oh yeah! here's another jam from back in the day!