by Sari Krosinsky
Daily Lobo
Chicano poets and writers of New Mexico polish your portfolios - Pancho McFarland and Mark Ramirez are calling for submissions from Chicano youth ages 12-25 for an anthology on social change.
The upcoming anthology, Desde el Barrio: Revolutionary Songs and Poems from Our Chicano Streets, is an attempt to make sure young Chicano voices are heard.
McFarland, a professor from the Center for the Applied Study of American Ethnicity at Colorado State University and Ramirez along with MCR Productions got together to create this collection of poetry, short stories and rap and song lyrics relating to a range of themes affecting Chicano writers.
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
McFarland said that they are soliciting works with a theme of social change and revolution "to get some young people thinking critically about revolution, activism and their place in the world, to think about themselves as potential agents of social change and not just powerless individuals controlled by the whims of a few extremely privileged men."
For McFarland, revolution means more than just armed revolt or a change of government and the anthology is open to a broad range of issues affecting Chicano youth. McFarland mentioned relationships in the family and community, corporate control of the media and the world's economy, the environment, the recent wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine and the drug wars.
He also spoke of "educational institutions which teach distorted history, fierce student competition, compulsory heterosexuality and regimentation and order-following instead of creative thinking and youth empowerment," as possible topics for submissions.
McFarland said he believes revolution can occur in many aspects of a person's life.
"Revolution encompasses everything from the anti-war activists and anti-globalization activists fighting today's corporate slave masters, to how we raise our children to how we consume food and drink coffee," McFarland said.
But revolution also means more than just opposition to systems of oppression, he added.
"A second step is to create new, just, democratic and anti-authoritarian systems and institutions that are bio-centric - life-centered - and controlled by small, autonomous communities," McFarland said, citing the Zapatistas as an example.
Along these lines, Desde el Barrio is intended not only to be a book about social change, but a step toward it.
"We require a dialogue that subverts conventional wisdom and has, as a goal, a better, more just and democratic world," McFarland said. "I think that such a poetry anthology can be a part of that dialogue."
While this anthology focuses on Chicano youth, McFarland said that he and Ramirez "feel the need for all young people to come together as they do in hip-hop culture and other spaces a
nd express themselves and fight back."
Desde el Barrio will bring forward the voices of young Chicano writers, voices McFarland believes will play an essential role in shaping the world to come.
