Current Conditions
31°F - M/CLOUDY
Jimmy Santiago Baca has written a memoir, poetry, short stories and now a new novel about Chicano life.
A character in that novel, "A Glass of Water," warns:
Their stories never fit facts,
Never fit theories, polls or statistics.
Go deeper,
Feel the forbidding nightmares of their lives shatter their sound-proof days so their voices will be heard.
Baca tells of two brothers born to Mexicans working on a New Mexico chili pepper farm. With the memory of their dead mother and the example of their disabled father always with them, the brothers seek escape from economic and social captivity based on back-breaking field labor.
One turns to drug dealing, the other to the most brutal form of boxing. Dark themes of rape, murder and revenge tinge this family saga.
Tuesday, Nov. 17, Baca will visit Lancaster on the invitation of the Lancaster Literary Guild. Those attending his presentations at Franklin & Marshall College and McCaskey High School may judge for themselves how much his art mirrors his life
• In a profile in Rapportage, LLG's journal, Sarah Elder calls the Albuquerque resident a crusader, noting he's been active in prison reform and Chicano cultural awareness.
Baca, who identifies himself as indo-Mexican, was abandoned by his parents to grow up in the poverty-stricken home of a blind Apache grandmother, in an orphanage and on the streets. He was illiterate when imprisoned on drug charges at age 21.
In jail, he taught himself to read and write and had poems published in Mother Jones magazine. Within a year of his release, he published his first poetry collection, "Immigrants in Our Own Land," in 1978. By 1984, he had earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of New Mexico.
Now, with more than a dozen books to his credit, he has a Pushcart Prize, an American Book Award and an International Hispanic Heritage Award for his writings.
Like the characters in his book, Baca has aspirations for others like him. In 2005, he founded the nonprofit organization Cedar Tree to help prisoners and ex-convicts through literary workshops that draw on life experiences.
As Elder writes of Baca: "He considers his purpose, and the purpose of all poets, 'is to always be there where the emotional and psychic and spiritual earthquakes are happening, and to be strong enough to be able to sing in those big chasms.' "
The Lancaster Literary Guild and Franklin & Marshall College will co-sponsor a 11:30 a.m. luncheon with Baca at Philadelphia Alumni Writers House on campus. It is free and open to the public. LLG will host his reading and book signing at 7:30 p.m. at McCaskey High School Auditorium. Tickets are $5 for adults, $2 for students. Call 431-4433 for tickets or more information.
Jo-Ann Greene is books editor of the Sunday News. Her e-mail address is jgreene@lnpnews.com.
