Elba Rosario Sánchez
and Olga Angelina García Echeverría, in their poetry
CD "When Skin Peels," stand on the edge between old-days
Chicano militancy and neo-Chicano subtlety.
In a solid, passionate 31-track
CD, Sánchez and García Echeverría travel
the landscapes of New Mexico and Los Angeles, their respective
homelands, the stone in which they've sought to carve their images.
De ristras a jeringas, these
voices, sometimes full of hope and sometimes full of anger, evoke
the clouds of the Southwest and the sunsets of Southern California,
dissimilar spaces that meet, as the Mexica would say, in the
navel of the earth.
But the similarities between
these two poets end there. Olga Angelina, a master of code-switching
(more commonly known as Spanglish), is a purist's worst nightmare.
Spanish is a cultural weapon that in the U.S. was often withheld
from its speakers. English is a high-caliber bullet; and once
Spanish-speakers found they could use both languages simultaneously,
a battle ensued. Spanglish is a powerful weapon, an explosive
combination that purists deride and artists enjoy.
Aquí el inglés
se quita sus moños
wears pantalones guangos
and dances slow motion to
oldies
Her language is as uncomprimised
as the rapid-fire dialect of bilingual masters: the housewife,
the store clerk, the lawyer, people who may be unconscious of
using this weapon, but use it to assert their cultural rights.
Our language, como cuerpo
de
serpiente, moves
it shape-shifts
it sheds
en un instante muere
y aún vuelve a nacer.
Unlike Olga Angelina, Elba
Rosario Sánchez stays away from code-switching and writes
in English or Spanish, seldom using both in one poem. In a Neruda-like
approach, Elba relishes her celebration of little blocks that
build something bigger: ristras, corn, tunas, lizards. A die-hard
feminist, she praises womanhood, her body, her cycles and her
strengths.
Me siento continente
tierra firme y frondosa
masa geográfica
de curvas y cuevas
trenzas de ríos
por mi espalda se escurren
montañas y añones
forran mis piernas
de dulce cocoa
Both poets, like most Chicano
artists, share a commitment to the movement, a passion to recreate
what was once lost or obfuscated.
Olga Angelina relies on
story-telling, while Elba remains on the land of in-your-face
militant Chicanos, those who are still working out their anger
towards white men.
Elba represents the rugged
climbs of earlier landscapes; Olga is the rolling hills, not
less dramatic, but easier to take in.
