Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.
Rafael Jesús González, born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, he has taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas at El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland (where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.)
He has four times been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He was Poet in Residence at the Oakland Museum of California and the Oakland Public Library under the Poets & Writers “Writers on Site” award in 1996. He served as contributing editor for The Montserrat Review and received the Annual Dragonfly Press Award for Literary Achievement in 2002 & 2012. In 2003 he was honored by the National Council of Teachers of English & Annenberg/CPB for his writing. In 2013 he received the César E. Chávez Lifetime Award. The City of Berkeley honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and was named the City of Berkeley's first Poet Laureate in 2017.
El 2 de noviembre Día de Muertos mexicano es una fiesta compleja en la que el dolor de la muerte y la alegría de la vida se entrelazan en la memoria y en la celebración, tal como en la celebración del Día de Muertos en el Museo de California en Oakland hace dos años en época mucho, mucho más feliz. Este año celebraremos el Día de Muertos aislados con mucha más tristeza que alegría — pero nunca, nunca se debe menospreciar la alegría. Hay un viejo refrán: Lo que he bailado nada me lo puede quitar.
Pero la muerte y el sufrimiento causado por la pandemia Covid, la tortura y muertes de inmigrantes por parte del gobierno estadunidense, los asesinatos de nuestros hermanos, hermanas negros y morenos por la policía, los incendios e inundaciones del cambio climático, el fascismo pesan mucho en el corazón. Y en los EE.UU. tenemos que elegir entre la democracia o el fascismo.
November 2 the Mexican Día de Muertos is a complex holiday in which the pain of death and the joy of life entwine in memory and celebration, such as in the 25th annual celebration of Día de Muertos at the Oakland Museum of California two years ago in a much, much happier time. This year we celebrate Día de Muertos in isolation with the sorrow much out-weighing the joy — but never, never must joy be short-changed. There is an old Spanish saying: Lo que he bailado nada me lo puede quitar (what I have danced nothing can take from me.)
But the death and suffering caused by the Covid pandemic, the torture and death of immigrants by the U.S. government, the murder of our black and brown brothers and sisters by the police, the fires and floods of climate change, fascism weigh heavily on our hearts. And we in the U.S. must elect between democracy or fascism.
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