Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana (Chicana and Chicano Visions of the Americas series)
"The things that migrants carry" is the title of one of the passionate essays in this collection of newspaper columns, speeches, and poems by Chicana activist Martinez, who lives in Albuquerque and writes with fury, lyricism, and humor about life on the border. In the tradition of the Catholic Worker Movement, she grounds her quest for peace in prayer and action. Arrested in the late 1980s for allegedly smuggling Salvadoran refugees, she continues to focus on the plight of the undocumented who perish as they make their brutal pilgrimage across the U. S.-Mexico border, bringing home in the process what it is like for U.S. citizens of color to be stopped and searched, viewed as strangers in their own land. She is also passionate in her opposition to the war in Iraq, yet she can also adopt a less-strident, more self--deprecating and even humorous tone, as when she bemoans the fact that she is not more eloquent in Spanish. The lively mix of activism, religion, history, and humor will have wide appeal.Hazel RochmanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.