¡Ajúa! Our Taller is Complete/Nuestro Taller Esta Completo

I'm so happy to report that our Taller Codex Nepantla is now complete. Our nepantleras are

1. Norma Alarcón
2. Norma Cantú
3. Antonia Castañeda
4. Yreina Cervántez
5. Alicia Gaspar de Alba
6. Deena González
7. Georgina Guzmán
8. Guisela Latorre
9. Alma López Gaspar de Alba
10. Ester Hernández
11. Coco Magallanes
12. Emma Pérez
13. Chela Sandoval
14. Cristina Serna
15. Rita Urquijo-Ruíz
16. Liliana Wilson

As you can see, we've got a great mix of historians, cultural critics, theorists, writers, and artists.

Now that we're all assembled, it's time to get busy on those translations. As a matter of fact, we've already got one submission from Chela, which is an essay she wrote called "From Radical Suffering to Spiritual Activism: Gloria Anzaldua's Hope" which was translated into Spanish and published in Hypatia (a very impressive revista para mujeres en la cárcel in León, Spain).

Below, I'm reprinting the notes to the writing crew and the visual crew that I had originally sent out with our Convocatoria, just to remind everybody what we're looking for for the Codex Nepantla website (which will be separate from this Blog).

We plan to launch the website on Valentine's Day 2012, so our deadline for everyone's materials is on or before December 15 (Alma needs at least two months to design and develop the website) but we encourage everyone to a continued dialogue via blog. This would be a good place to check in with everybody and let us know about your triumphs and tribulations in the translation trenches.

As soon as possible, please let us know what theories, concepts, or ideas you plan to translate or visually represent. You can do it directly on this blog.

Adelante, mujeres!
Abrazos, Alicia

Note to Writing Crew:
What we have in mind is 1000-word mini-essays in Spanish explaining a
specific concept or set of concepts. For some of you, these concepts will be original (meaning you wrote them), for others, they will be concepts we know well and use in our work, our teaching, and our scholarship. I, for example, will explain my own theory of "alter-Nativity" but I'm also keen on translating Anzaldúa's seven steps of mestiza consciousness, but I'm going to need help translating concepts that pertain to each of those steps, such as the Shadow Beast, the Coatlicue State, la facultad, etc. One alternative would be to hire a graduate student to help out with these translations, something that I plan to do as soon as school starts at UCLA. Once we know who's in the group, we can draw up a list of concepts/ideas/theories and begin to work on our translations. After being reviewed by our Spanish editors, these pieces will get uploaded to the eCodex, which can be accessed directly by our Mexicana compañeras.

Note to Visual Crew:
We've chosen the four of you--Ester, Yolanda, Yreina, and Liliana--to

join Alma in creating visual engagements with Chicana lesbian feminist ideas. Ester's "Karate Lupe" or Yolanda's "Marathon Guadalupe," for example, is each a good way of communicating the ideas of the early Chicana feminists in el Movimiento. Yreina's piece "Mujer de Mucha Enagua" perfectly speaks to our Chicana legacy of MeXicana feminist resistance from Sor Juana to the Zapatista women. So many of Liliana Wilson's pieces (as I have shown in essay I wrote on her work) are visual representations of Anzaldúa's process of conocimiento. Alma's work on "Our Lady" disidentifies the Virgin of Guadalupe from its religious context and reinscribes her with a new "sitio y lengua" as an indigenous/mestiza revolutionary. In other words, artists, your contribution to the Codex Nepantla will be visual, accompanied by a very short paragraph in Spanish about how the work represents your own Chicana lesbian and/or Chicana feminist vision. Alma will follow up with more specific info for the artists.

SPANISH

Estoy muy contenta de informarles que nuestro Taller Codex Nepantla se ha completado. Nuestras nepantleras son

1.     Norma Alarcón
2.     Norma Cantú
3.     Antonia Castañeda
4.     Yreina Cervántez
5.     Alicia Gaspar de Alba
6.     Deena González
7.     Georgina Guzmán
8.     Guisela Latorre
9.     Alma López Gaspar de Alba
10.     Ester Hernández
11.     Coco Magallanes
12.     Emma Pérez
13.     Chela Sandoval
14.     Cristina Serna
15.     Rita Urquijo-Ruíz
16.     Liliana Wilson

Como pueden ver, tenemos una gran mezcla de historiadoras, críticas culturales, teóricas, escritoras y artistas.
 
Ahora que estamos todas reunidas, es el momento de ponerse a trabajar en las traducciones. Como cuestión de hecho, ya tenemos una presentación de Chela, que es un ensayo que escribió titulado "Del sufrimiento radical al activismo espiritual: la esperanza de Gloria Anzaldúa," que fue traducido al español y publicado en Hypatia (una impresionante revista para Mujeres en la Cárcel de León, España).
 
A continuación, estoy reimprimiendo las notas para la tripulación de escritoras y el equipo de artistas visuales que les había enviado con nuestra Convocatoria, sólo para recordar a todas lo que estamos buscando para el sitio web del Codex Nepantla (que será independiente de este blog) .
 
Tenemos la intención de lanzar el sitio web el día de San Valentín de 2012, por lo que nuestra fecha límite para los materiales de cada una es en o antes del 15 de diciembre 2011 (Alma necesita al menos dos meses para diseñar y desarrollar el sitio web), pero Alma y yo queremos animarlas a todas a proseguir el diálogo a través del blog. Este sería un buen lugar para compartir sus exitos y tribulaciones en las trincheras de la traducción.

Tan pronto como sea posible, por favor háganme saber que teorías, conceptos, o ideas van a traducir o representar visualmente. Pueden hacerlo directemente en este blog.


Adelante, mujeres!
Abrazos, Alicia

Para la tripulación de escritoras: 
 Lo que tenemos en mente son mini-ensayos de 1000 palabras  en español que explican unconcepto específico o un conjunto de conceptos. Para algunas de ustedes, estos conceptos deberán ser originales (lo que significa que tu los escribiste), para otras, serán los conceptos que conocemos bien y utilizamos en nuestro trabajo, nuestra enseñanza y nuestras becas. Yo, por ejemplo, voy a explicar mi teoría de "alter-Natividad", pero también estoy interesada en la traducción de los siete pasos de la conciencia mestiza que nos enseña Anzaldúa, pero voy a necesitar ayuda para traducir conceptos que pertenecen a cada uno de esos pasos, como la Bestia Oscura, el Estado Coatlicue, la Facultad, etc Una alternativa sería contratar a un estudiante de posgrado para ayudar con las traducciones, algo que pienso hacer en cuanto empiecen las clases en la UCLA. Una vez que sabemos quien está en el grupo, podemos elaborar una lista de conceptos / ideas / teorías y empezar a trabajar en las traducciones. Después de ser revisadas por nuestros editores hispano-hablantes, estas piezas se cargan en el eCodex, que se puede acceder directamente por nuestras compañeras Mexicanas.


    Para el equipo de artistas visuales:
    Hemos elegido a las cuatro de ustedes - Ester, Yolanda, Yreina y Liliana - a unirse a Alma en la creación de inerpretaciones visuales de las ideas feministas chicanas lesbianas. La "Karate Lupe" de Ester o la "Maratón Guadalupe"de Yolanda, por ejemplo, comunican visualmente las ideas de las primeras feministas chicanas de El Movimiento. La pieza de Yreina titulada "Mujer de Mucha enagua" perfectamente habla de nuestra herencia chicana de resistencia feminista Mexicana desde Sor Juana a las mujeres zapatistas. Igualmente, muchas de las obras Liliana Wilson (como he demostrado en el ensayo que escribí sobre su obra) son representaciones visuales del proceso de Anzaldúa de Conocimiento. El trabajo de Alma en "Nuestra Señora" desidentifica la Virgen de Guadalupe a partir de su contexto religioso y la reinscribe adentro de un nuevo "sitio y Lengua" como una revolucionaria indígena / mestiza. Sus contribuciones visuales seran acompañados de un pequeño párrafo en español acerca de cómo el trabajo representa la vision chicana feminista o chicana lesbiana chicana. Alma les dará seguimiento con información más específica para las artistas.

Tres nuevas secciones/Three new sections

En nuestro continuo esfuerzo por crear un sitio en el que compartimos nuestras teorías como chicanas lesbianas y feministas con nuestras compañeras lesbofeministas hispano-hablantes, hemos agregado tres nuevas secciones a este blog. Las nuevas secciones son términos y teorías, biografías y bibliografía. Les pedimos que por favor sugieran entradas para cada sección.

Usted puede hacer sugerencias de las siguientes maneras:

1. New Post. Como autor de este blog, simplemente haga clic en "new post", títulelo, escriba el mensaje, y cuando termine de escribirlo, simplemente haga clic en la caja anaranjada titulada "publish post" situado en la esquina inferior a la izquierda. Si desea editar su mensaje, simplemente haga clic al "edit posts."

2. Comentarios. Cualquier persona puede hacer comentarios. Simplemente haga clic en "comentarios"localizado en la parte inferior de esta entrada/"post." Se le pedirá que ingrese su comentario.

3. De correo electrónico.  Envienos un email a codexnepantla@gmail.com


In our continued effort to create a site where we share our Chicana lesbian and feminist theories with Spanish-speaking lesbofeminists, we have added three new sections to this blog.  They include terms & theories, biographies, and bibliography.  Please suggest entries to each section.  


You can make suggestions in the following ways:


1.  New Post.  As an author to this blog, you simply click on "new post," type title, type in the body of the post, and when done, simply click on the orange "publish post" button on the lower left hand corner.  If you wish to edit your post, simple go to "edit posts" under "posting" tab.


2. Comment.  Anyone can comment.  Simple scroll to bottom of this post entry and click on "comments."  You will be prompted to enter your comment.


3.  Email.  Email codexnepantla@gmail.com.

Important Online resource on Nepantla processes/Recurso importante sobre los procesos nepantleros

I found an amazing page just now that discusses nepantla and nepantla-processes, called "The Centrality of Nepantla in Nahua-Era Philosophy" by James Maffie in the Philosophy Department at Colorado State University. He writes:

Nepantla characterizes a particular kind of process or activity: one consisting of middling mutuality and balanced reciprocity. I call such processes “nepantla-processes.” Nepantla-processes are dialectical, transactional, and oscillating; centering as well as destabilizing; and abundant with mutuality and reciprocity. They situate people or things in nepantlatli, “in the middle” of or “betwixt and between” two endpoints. Nepantla-processes are also simultaneously destructive and creative, and hence, transformative.

Unfortunately, the page is in English, and will not be of any help to our Mexicana friends for whom we are translating Chicana feminist/lesbian theory. But I find it very useful for those of us on this side to connect with Anzaldúa's theories and see how much of her nepantla vision was, in fact, rooted in the Nahua philosophy. Indeed, our Codex Nepantla is itself a nepantla-process, "dialectical, transactional, and oscillating; centering as well as destabilizing; and abundant with mutuality and reciprocity." At least, that's what Alma and I are hoping for: that abundant mutuality and reciprocity of all of the participants, each a tlacuila or scribe in the process of writing in between the red and the black ink. Yes, in many ways the process will be destabilizing as we juggle all of our other responsibilities and obligations, and especially as we come face to face with the Shadow Beast of our own internalized linguistic terrorism that continues to persecute our pocha tongues and our "bad" Spanish.

Acabo de encontrar una pagina increible que habla de nepantla y los procesos nepantleros, se titula "La Centralidad de Nepantla en la Filosofía de la Era Nahua," escrita por James Maffie de la facultad de filosofía en Colorado State University. El dice:

Nepantla caracteriza un proceso o actividad muy particular: que consiste de mutualidad entredós y reciprocidad balanceada. Yo le llamo a estos procesos, procesos nepantleros. Los procesos nepantleros son dialécticos, transaccionales, y oscilantes; centran igual que desestabilizan; y abundan con mutualidad y reciprocidad. Sitúan a personas o cosas en nepantlatli, o sea, entre medio de dos puntos finales. Los procesos nepantleros son simultáneamente destructivos y creativos, y por ende, transformativos.

 Desafortunadamente, la pagina esta en ingles, así que no les servirá de mucha a nuestras compañeras mexicanas por quien estamos traduciendo la teoría Chicana feminista y Chicana lésbica. Pero para nosotras de este lado nos puede servir a conectar con las teorías de Anzaldúa y ver que tan arraigada esta la visión nepantlera de Gloria con la filosofía nahua. Por seguro, nuestro Codex Nepantla es un proceso nepantlero, "dialéctico, transaccional, oscilante; que centra igual que desestabiliza; y que abundara con mutualidad y reciprocidad." Al menos, es lo que Alma y yo esperamos--la abundancia de mutualidad y reciprocidad de todas nuestras participantes, cada una tlacuila, o escribana, en el proceso de escribir entre medio de la tinta negra y roja. Por supuesto que este proceso de muchas formas será desestabilizante mientras hacemos juegos malabares con todas nuestras otras responsabilidades y obligaciones, y especialmente cuando nos enfrentemos con la Fiera Oscura de nuestro terrorismo lingüístico que aun nos persigue por nuestras lenguas pochas y nuestro español "malo."

English to Spanish online translation programs

I wrote the text below in English first, and used http://translate.google.com to translate.

Primero, yo escribí el siguiente texto en Inglés, y para traducirlo, ulilice http://translate.google.com.

Alma, 3rd grade, El Sereno Elementary School, L.A.

Algunas de ustedes saben que yo nací en Los Mochis, Sinaloa, pero fui criada en Los Angeles desde que tenía cuatro años de edad. Mi educación fue completemente en los Estados Unidos. Afortunadamente para mí, asisti al 1 º y 2 º grado en una escuela de educación primaria bilingüe en la Pico-Union y el área del Centro de Convenciones. En esa escuela, me enseñaron a leer y escribir en español durante la transición al Inglés. Con este poco español, leia el periódico La Opinión y al igual que otros niños inmigrantes, ayudé a mis padres con algunas de las traducciones necesarias.

Cuando tenía trece años, yo viví en la ciudad de México. Allí asisti a una escuela católica privada para niñas.

Mi español es limitado. Por lo tanto, he buscado a través de Internet a programas que ayuden con traducciónes del ingles al español. He encontrado varias, pero creo que http://translate.google.com es el mejor. Tambien www.spanishdict.com.

Básicamente, escriban directamente o pueden copiar y pegar un párrafo o un par de párrafos en la caja "De: Inglés", y la traducción aparece en el cuadro a la derecha titulado "Traducción del Inglés al Español." A continuación, pueden copiar y pegar esta traducción a su propio documento.

No es perfecto. Por lo tanto, tendrán que leer el párrafo traducido para asegurarse de que suena correcto. Usen un diccionario para ayudarse con este trabajo de traducción.

Para los acentos y otras letras españolas, como "ñ" en este blog, utilice las teclas que utiliza en sus documentos de Microsoft Word.

El propósito de este blog es recopilar y documentar el proceso de este proyecto. Por favor, utilizenlo para compartir recursos, ideas, sugerencias y pensamientos. Todas las participantes han sido invitadas a ser contribuyentes. Todo lo que necesitan es seguir las instrucciones enviadas por correo electrónico.

Este blog con el tiempo se convertirá en un enlace a la página web del proyecto.

Estamos muy entusiasmadas con el potencial de este proyecto del puente que se puede crear entre chicanas y mexicanas lesbofeministas. Gracias por aceptar ser parte de este proyecto.

Some of you may know that I was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa but raised in Los Angeles since I was four years old. My entire schooling was in the United States. Fortunately for me, I attended 1st and 2nd grade in a bilingual education elementary school in the Pico-Union and Convention Center area. I was taught to read and write in Spanish while transitioning into English. With this limited Spanish, I was able to read the La Opinion newspaper and like other immigrant kids, I helped my parents with some necessary translations.

When I was thirteen years old, I lived in Mexico City. There I attended a girls private Catholic school.

My Spanish is limited. So, I searched through the internet for English to Spanish translation programs. I have found a few, but I think http://translate.google.com is the best.  Also, http://www.spanishdict.com.

Basically, you either type directly or copy paste a paragraph or a few paragraphs into the "from: English" box, and they appear on the box on the right titled "English to Spanish translation." Then copy paste that to your document.

It is not perfect. So, you will need to read through the translated paragraph to make sure it sounds correct.

For accents and other Spanish letters such as "ñ" on this blog, use the keys you use on your Microsoft Word documents.

The purpose of this blog is to gather and document the process of this project. Please use it to share resources, ideas, suggestions and thoughts. All participants have been invited to be contributors. All you need to to is follow the instructions emailed to you.

This blog will eventually become a link to the project website.

We are very excited about the potential bridge this project can create between Chicanas and Mexican lesbofeminists. Thank you for agreeing to be a part of it.

Gracias por Coatlicue photo

Hello: many thanks for organizing us and for the Coatlique photo which I had lost from my old telephone 3 years ago! Impecabbly good taste, I say there....given the Brits role in "rescuing" the "ruins" (humph, unpack this one), thanks to you y Alma; mil gracias por su trabajo y por avanzando nuestro archivo y la historia, documentada para que no digan que otro inglese te descubrio, Alma, 500 anos adelantados. Agradeciendoles, Deena p.d. donde se encuentran los accentos en un blog?

Convocatoria

Alma and I just got back from the Tercera Semana de Cultura Lesbiana Feminista hosted by Prensa Editorial LesVoz in Mexico City, which was celebrating its 17th anniversary.  We were invited to present on our work at the event, and then they invited us to participate in the introductory section of the mini-encuentro of other lesbian feminist organizations in Mexico that was convened for the purpose of solidarity and to establish a "red" or network of "movimientos autonomos" (which I think means grassroots and not related to lesbian academic networks in Mexico) that would help all of the orgs feel less isolated in their respective communities. There were orgs from DF, Zacatecas, Chiapas, Morelos, Guadalajara, and Puebla. At the mini-encuentro, Yan Maria Castro (whose artwork graces the cover of the second edition of Chicana Lesbians) presented a history of Mexican feminism since the 1960s and showed how that movement has become co-opted by the "queer," "gay," and "trans" movements, which in Mexico have totally absorbed and invisibilized the grassroots lesbian feminist movement. Part of the problem she outlined was that the main theory being read in Mexico by lesbian academics is the white Anglo and Euro feminist theory of Judith Butler, Monique Wittig,Diana Fuss, et al, because apparently this is the only material being translated into Spanish. Judith Butler seems to be the reigning lesbian theorist in Mexico!! 

Some of the women at the mini-encuentro were familiar with the name, Gloria Anzaldua, and with her work in This Bridge Called My Back (which is the only one of Gloria's books available in Spanish) but not with her theories, much less with Emma's or Norma's or Chela's or Deena's or any other Chicana lesbian/feminist theories and texts. As I was sitting there, trying to explain "mestiza consciousness," "nepantlismo," "oppostional consciousness" and "sitios y lenguas" to them,  it occurred to me that we, Chicana lesbians and feminists, might be able to translate some of this work for them, in both language and art. I talked about it with Alma and then and there, Alma and I decided to form a "taller" or writer's and artist's collective, to help bring Chicana feminist and Chicana lesbian theory to Mexican lesbians. It's just wrong that their only reading is white women's theory and that grassroots lesbian organizations don't have access (because they don't read English) to the kind of theory that would really speak to their lives. Right now, Alma is busy developing a website that will function like an eCodex of words and images that will record and document the existence of our theories in Spanish.

I am, therefore, writing to invite you to join our taller, which we have named CODEX NEPANTLA (Nepanta here alluding to both Anzaldúa's concept and Sor Juana's birthplace at the foot of the volcanoes in Mexico), and to help us do the work of bringing Chicana lesbian/feminist theory to Mexican grassroots (many of them indigenista) lesbian feminist activists.

I'm not suggesting we translate full texts per se, but rather the concepts from these texts that have so impacted and empowered us, not to mention changed the minds and directions of a whole generation of new scholars, artists, and activists. It's a good way to establish a cross-border network between ourselves and Mexican lesbofeministas (as the grassroots Mexican lesbians prefer to be called, since they absolutely detest the word "queer" and don't want to be confused for what they call the "gay lesbians" or the heterofeministas of the academy), and it's also a good way for us to practice our Spanish. I know that translating my own presentation into Spanish helped me tremendously to navigate a Spanish-only discussion of my three novels and it helped Alma do the same for her presentation on her Guadalupe Revolucionaria. And we found a very interested audience who was thirsty for this kind of "conocimiento."

Note to Writing Crew:
What we have in mind is 1000-word mini-essays in Spanish explaining a specific concept or set of concepts. For some of you, these concepts will be original (meaning you wrote them), for others, they will be concepts we know well and use in our work, our teaching, and our scholarship. I, for example, will explain my own theory of "alter-Nativity" but I'm also keen on translating Anzaldúa's seven steps of mestiza consciousness, but I'm going to need help translating concepts that pertain to each of those steps, such as the Shadow Beast, the Coatlicue State, la facultad, etc. One alternative would be to hire a graduate student to help out with these translations, something that I plan to do as soon as school starts at UCLA. Once we know who's in the group, we can draw up a list of concepts/ideas/theories and begin to work on our translations. After being reviewed by our Spanish editors, these pieces will get uploaded to the eCodex, which can be accessed directly by our Mexicana compañeras.

Note to Visual Crew:
We've chosen the five of you--Ester, Yolanda, Yreina, Liliana and Celia--to join Alma in creating visual engagements with Chicana lesbian feminist ideas. Ester's "Karate Lupe" or Yolanda's "Marathon Guadalupe," for example, is each a good way of communicating the ideas of the early Chicana feminists in el Movimiento. Yreina's piece "Mujer de Mucha Enagua" perfectly speaks to our Chicana legacy of MeXicana feminist resistance from Sor Juana to the Zapatista women. So many of Liliana Wilson's pieces (as I have shown in essay I wrote on her work) are visual representations of Anzaldúa's process of concimiento. Alma's work on "Our Lady" disidentifies the Virgin of Guadalupe from its religious context and reinscribes her with a new "sitio y lengua" as an indigenous/mestiza revolutionary. In other words, artists, your contribution to the Codex Nepantla will be visual, accompanied by a very short paragraph in Spanish about how the work represents your own Chicana lesbian and/or Chicana feminist vision. Alma will follow up with more specific info for the artists.

I've written out our taller's mission statement. Please take a look and decide if you would like to be a part of this collective. If it sounds like something you'd like to contribute to, please send me an email to that effect, which includes a short bio in Spanish and maybe an idea of which theory/concept you would like to focus on for your written or visual contribution to the Codex.

I know none of us needs one more thing to do, but I think this is really important and necessary work, and you can contribute as much or as little as your time and energy allow. Unfortunately, we do have a deadline, which is "el fin del mundo," that is, the next Marcha Lesbica in March 2012 that is being billed "La Marcha Lesbica Al Fin Del Mundo" to mark the transition into the sexto sol. Ideally, we would like to construct the eCodex between October 1 and February 1.  This will give us four months of virtual contact with our Mexicana compañeras, during which time they can be reading the material, studying the artwork, conversing with us via the blog that will accompany the eCodex, and preparing for la Marcha. Alma and I plan to join the Marcha with a banner for Codex Nepantla. From this eCodex project, we hope to build toward a binational lesbian/feminist encuentro in Mexico City.

There is no publication in mind for this eCodex (at least not in the immediate future). This is purely a service that we want to provide to Mexican lesbofeministas who sorely need to read our work. Our reward is creating access to the work, the exercise it will provide for our own bifurcated tongues (some of us more so than others), and the potential for a cross-border alliance between Chicana and Mexicana lesbian feminists.

Si se animan, let us know as soon as possible. The deadline for your confirmation and bio is September 16, día de la Independencia.