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A collection of short stories by Fred Arroyo.
"A collection of autobiographical stories that honor the working, migratory, and often forgotten or silenced lives of men, stemming from Fred Arroyo's father"--
Latina/o/x places exist as both tangible physical phenomena and gatherings created and maintained by creative cultural practices. In this collection, an interdisciplinary group of contributors critically examines the many ways that varied Latina/o/x communities cohere through cultural expression. Authors consider how our embodied experiences of place, together with our histories and knowledge, inform our imagination and reimagination of our surroundings in acts of placemaking. This placemaking often considers environmental sustainability as it helps to sustain communities in the face of xenophobia and racism through cultural expression ranging from festivals to zines to sanctuary movements. It emerges not only in specific locations but as movement within and between sites; not only as part of a built environment, but also as an aesthetic practice; and not only because of efforts by cultural, political, and institutional leaders, but through mass media and countless human interactions. A rare and crucial perspective on Latina/o/x people in the Midwest, Building Sustainable Worlds reveals how expressive culture contributes to, and sustains, a sense of place in an uncertain era.
Drawing on critical and sociocultural frameworks, this volume presents narrative studies by or about Latinas in which they speak up about issues of identity and education. Using narratives, self-identification stories, and testimonios as theory, methodology, and advocacy, this volume brings together a wide range of Latinx perspectives on education identity, bilingualism, and belonging. The narratives illustrate the various ways erasure and human agency shape the lives and identities of Latinas in the United States from primary school to higher education and beyond, in their schools and communities. Contributors explore how schools and educational institutions can support student agency by adopting a transformative activist stance through curricula, learning contexts, and policies. Chapters contain implications for teaching and come together to showcase the importance of explicit activist efforts to combat erasure and engage in transformative and emancipatory education.
What can we know of what's most profound? In these brief and lyrical fictions, Rob Davidson offers us glimpses of what remains out of reach. He writes, "There is inside of us dark music, the melody of expectation." Brilliant, his dark music--whether his words fulfill or expand or thwart our desires. His wise language assures us: "Disappointment has its benefits, nudging us toward joy." Tiny marvels, these flashes. Beautiful mystery, this book. --Peggy Shumaker, author of Just Breathe Normally Sometimes you command more attention by lowering your voice. Sometimes you say more by choosing to say less. Sometimes the essence of a situation, a character, even of an entire life presents itself, suspended like a specimen, in a single gesture, a spoken phrase, an image, a glance. Rob Davidson's stories in Spectators go straight for the metaphysical jugular, offering vividly sketched characters in whom you will surely recognize yourself, creating stealthily constructed miniature worlds in which you will surely recognize the big old world you and I walk through on a daily basis, dumbfounded and amazed and taking in the sights. --Troy Jollimore, author of Syllabus of Errors As the beautifully crafted stories of Spectators build, become brief steps and steles in a longer journey, the voices and visions, the flashes and glimpses lead us to new thresholds: that region of memory and desire, story and imagination, where we "eternally arrive." Even in all its brevity, fragmentation, and rendering of globalization's affects, Spectators is a big, bold, expansive, and heartfelt work that shines with Rob Davidson's masterly writing. --Fred Arroyo, author of Western Avenue and Other Fictions
Most agree that West Liberty is a special place. The first majority Hispanic town in Iowa, it has been covered by media giants such as Reuters, Telemundo, NBC, and ESPN. But Chuy Renteria and his friends grew up in the space between these news stories, where a more complicated West Liberty awaits. We Heard It When We Were Young tells the story of a young boy, first-generation Mexican American, who is torn between cultures: between immigrant parents trying to acclimate to midwestern life and a town that is, by turns, supportive and disturbingly antagonistic. Renteria looks past the public celebrations of diversity to dive into the private tensions of a community reflecting the changing American landscape. There are culture clashes, breakdancing battles, fistfights, quinceañeras, vandalism, adventures on bicycles, and souped-up lowriders, all set to an early 2000s soundtrack. Renteria and his friends struggle to find their identities and reckon with intergenerational trauma and racism in a town trying to do the same. A humorous and poignant reflection on coming of age, We Heard It When We Were Young puts its finger on a particular cultural moment at the turn of the millennium.
Remember that the dream of one is the dream of everyone. Ernest is searching for a place where he can live beyond his past. His family has returned to Puerto Rico, and Ernest remains in the States, desiring only distance from his memories of childhood displacement and work, his parentsÕ tumultuous relationship, and his own love for Magdalene. Magdalene, too, looks to move beyond her memories as she follows ErnestÕs family home, seeking resolution to her motherÕs hurtful secrets, her fatherÕs unknown identity, and her love for Ernest. As Ernest moves through the fields of Michigan, as Magdalene traverses the jungles of Puerto Rico and the shores of the Caribbean, they discover that their dreams and identities are linked within the framework of their families and their pasts. Together, Ernest and Magdalene must come to terms with the secrets and mistakes made by the previous generation, the histories of disloyalty and abandonment, of secrecy and sorrow. Their struggles take place in a region of lost names, where loves and memories are banished and found. Fred Arroyo writes a story in two voices, following Ernest and Magdalene by turns in prose that is elegant and lyrical. His words evoke another world lush with the scent of salt spray, the taste of mangoes, and the rush of leaves, alive with characters whose ardors and pathos are achingly real. Arroyo explores the ebb and flow between past and present and themes that are enduring. Ultimately, Ernest and Magdalene must live with more than their memories; they must rediscover the intimacies of the region of lost names.
Often dismissed as sensationalist, transgressive fiction is a sophisticated movement with roots in Menippean satire and the Rabelaisian carnal folk sensibility praised by Bakhtin. This study, the first of its kind, provides a thorough literary background and analysis of key transgressive authors such as Acker, Amis, Carter, Ellis, and Palahniuk.