Asina is How We Talk: A collection of Tejano poetry written en la lengua de la gente

“I offer this collection of poetry as a celebration of the pocho, mocho, Spanglish, Tejano, Tex-Mex lengua that the gente actually speaks.”
-Eddie Vega, Editor

Asina is How We Talk is a collection of Tejano poetry written by 25 authors en la lengua de la gente.
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Asina is How We Talk is a fresh and tasty morsel of language activism, a defense of that nepantla of a borderland between two cultures, two languages, two nations, where even how we accent our words, which languages we speak, and whether those languages are allowed to consort with each other become a political, personal, and possibly confrontational action. An anthem of biculturalism, it fills our senses with the tastes and sounds of that cultural and linguistic mix where children of the Aztec Quinto Sol express their uniqueness and pride “...Eating pepperoni pizza/With salsa verde...” (Nicolás Valdez) and learn that “cenizas quedan/ my body should be a furnace” (ire’ne lara silva.)

Yet still, we clamber over the obstacles with purpose and pride, despite the many attempts of traditional society to “...tempt us with the carrot/ of Spanish ancestry/ to lead us blinkered/ toward weaponized whiteness...” (David Bowles)

Often, these poems become a direct guideline for survival, instructions for living, as a person negotiating spaces between traditional choices, between the accepted cultural images, whether it’s Lea Colchado’s “Eat raspas with pickles and lots of chamoy..../...Keep falling in love with the moon./ Keep singing with the chicharras” ; Samantha Ceballos’ How to Stitch an Invisible Wound; or the powerfully real multiple choice in Priscilla Celina Suarez’ HOW TO WALK AWAY.

The incisive sarcasm of Amalia Ortiz’ is a tongue-in-cheek commercial advertisement for/ warning against the escapism of mindless trend-followers in Enough Thinkin, in a pounding rhyme that cuts tongue right into cheek.

Don’t ask about Manteca. It all tastes better with lard.

You’ll crave it to the grave when all your arteries are hard.

Don’t ask about corn syrup. Just pass the deep fried dough.

Don’t question diabetes rates ‘cause you don’t want to know....

But most importantly, this collection embraces and embodies the affirmation of joyful resistance that our code-switching native Tex-Mex represents, an esthetic affirmation that regional language can be used as linguistic activism, as a documentation of our history and our oppression and our survival. Joaquin Muerte sonorously records activism “Breakin with pumas/ Danzando with plumas/ Wiping the humo from our eyes/ Fightin’ the ruthless with power...”

These works also represent a decidedly dual identity and culture, a freedom of speech and of belief., the belief that no language is sanctified and prescribed by God over others, unchanging and pure, but all are mixed, and the more they mix, the richer they get, for we are all mestizos, and we are all speaking languages that have been mixed between other sources to create the “standard” languages we now speak dynamic, enriched, ever-crossbreeding and improving in their phonetic and literary wealth.

These poems shout out loud the joyfulness of being exactly who we are- half Tex, half Mex, all new, unique and fresh, like Anthony The Poet’s

...And I don’t mean to cause/

Any controversial chispas

With these poetic pipas,

But I do love me

A hand-made flour tortilla

Filled with crispy, curly tripas!...

There are many treasures in this short volume like Rita Ortiz’ Choque en Allende, Coahuila, Mexico – 1970, which asks questions deeper than words can pronounce. and Michelle R. Garza’s confrontation of variations in bilingual individualities, (Un)furbished History de Mi Lengua, where

My Spanish rolls off the tongue like

Lego blocks—

hard plastic

squared edges

unwieldy at the roof of my mouth; my

erres are covered in grease. Sluggish—

my hot tongue tries

to force the thick spit of my

colonial Tex Mex away.

This is a world where

I'm dancing all the way to the cajera

the viejitas are smiling

the viejitos just nod their heads

los chamaquitos are meneando in their shopping carts, and

my hips are swaying while I’m paying

y la cajera?

como si nada

como un stone

parada allí nomás

“veinticuatro cincuenta y tres”

it’s like the music stops...

(Eddie Vega)

and Susana Nevarez-Marquez’ image-rich assertion that this is where “...la musiquita began/ on dance floors born of earth/ packed with ceniza y agua”.

And here our world becomes populated with characters like Jacinto Jesus Cardona’s El Bato Loco En El Zócalo , who “scatters pétalos/ en el zócalo/ begs for pesos/to buy besos/ for his humble/ huesos” and affirmations that God is, after all, a Chicana who knows exactly how to build a man bien ‘pacito, who mixes her language all the way to the end, where even love “whispers, / ¡Te quiero singos! / y... Bueno Bye!” (Tafolla,in God, la Chicana.)

Gone from these pages is any shame over this interlanguage formed by centuries of intercultural contact and the richly layered wealth of waves of new cultural arrivals.

Asina is How we Talk is an instrument of cultural survival, pride, and understanding, and a celebration of a dynamic translanguaging that brings laughter, growth, and healing.

More importantly, it is a reflection of who we are, because Asina IS how we talk!

Carmen Tafolla, Professor Emerita, Bicultural Bilingual Studies University of Texas San Antonio State Poet Laureate of Texas 2015