We are very excited to inform you that Academia Semillas Del Pueblo’s charter has been renewed for another 5 years!

On Thursday, March 29, 2007 over 1,000 parents, students, educators, community members and supporters walked from Plaza Olvera to LAUSD headquarters to attend the history-making board meeting for Academia Semillas del Pueblo. If you didn’t have an opportunity to watch the LAUSD Board meeting, you can watch it this Sunday on KLCS, Channel 58. Academia’s charter renewal will be shown between the hours of 2-4:30pm.

Thank you to everyone who called the board members, sent support letters, signed our pledge for educational equity, informed others about our school, joined us in our various marches and board meetings, and showed your support in many other ways. You helped save our school, now help us grow! Save the date, June 7th for our fundraiser/celebration. Featuring art works by: B+, Coronado Press, Emilia Garcia, Eric Coleman, Gabriel Benavides, Jose Ramirez, Mare, Mario Ybarra Jr., Martha Cooper, Omar Ramirez, Oscar Magallanes, Ritzy Periwinkle, Self Help Graphics & Art, Shawn Mortensen, Slick, Steve Marcus, Wane, West…and more TBA. Plus Special Guest and Live Performances.

Xie Xie, Tlazomakamatli, Thank you, Gracias,

Academia Semillas Del Pueblo

Academia Semillas del Pueblo is a vital indigenous-centered educational institution. Based in El Sereno, it was created five years ago by members of the greater East Los Angeles community for the community, which for decades has suffered with some of the worse schools in the LA Unified School District.

Tomorrow, March 29, the LAUSD will decide whether or not to renew the school’s charter. Please attend a march and rally in support of Academia Semillas del Pueblo at Olvera Street from 12:30 PM. The march will continue on to LAUSD’s headquarters at 3rd and Beaudry. The rally will start at 1:30 PM.

For more information, please go to the website of Academia Semillas del Pueblo at www.dignidad.org.

Luis J. Rodriguez, acclaimed writer and cofounder of Tia Chucha’s Cafe Cultural, will read from his latest poetry collection My Nature is Hunger: New & Selected Poems (Curbstone Press/Rattle Edition) with renowned Chicano artist Mark Vallen - who will be on hand to talk about the original oil painting Vallen created for the book cover, and to sell prints of the painting. The event is scheduled for Saturday, November 5, 2005 at 5 PM at Tia Chucha’s Cafe Cultural, 12737 Glenoaks Blvd., #22, Sylmar, CA 91342. Phone: 818-362-7060. For address, hours, directions, and more go to www.tiachucha.com

Also, later at 7 PM Luis J. Rodriguez is inviting poets from around the LA area to read their works for peace, justice and a cooperative way of life as part of the global mobilization of poetry and conscious-raising, sponsored by Poets Against War (www.poetsagainstwar.net). Poets Against War, founded by award-winning poet and translator Sam Hamill, has amassed the largest collection of poetry against war in the world. They have been working hard to bring attention to stopping the US wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the peaceful resolutions of the complex issues of our day for the benefit of all humanity.

“It’s time that we imagined another way to deal with the hard issues confronting us instead of violence and war,” Rodriguez said. “I hope this event will galvanize the LA poetry community to activate their lives and their verses toward peace and true justice in our time.” The LA Times “Book Review” section of October 16, 2005 gave a one-page presentation of Luis Rodriguez’s new poetry book.

[ This review of Luis J. Rodriguez’ Music of the Mill was written by Gina Ruiz, who has also reviewed a number of other recent books for Xispas ]

Pulitzer-prize winning author John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 about the Joad family - their poverty, their desperation and above all their dignity. It was and is an amazing social commentary, and Luis Rodriguez’s Music of the Mill is as well. Everyone knows about the Great Depression but how many people outside of the little South L.A. towns where the steel mill ruled for so many years and about the economical and social decline the closing of those mills caused? Billy Joel sang about Allentown and the whole nation was made aware of the loss of mills in Pennsylvania. Who sang for Huntington Park, Maywood, and South Gate, those little sad towns in Los Angeles? Luis J. Rodriguez has now done so. In Music of the Mill, Luis Rodriguez writes about the Salcido family and their 60-year relationship to the mill called Nazareth Steel. The story starts with Propocio and Eladia walking most of the way from their home in Mexico to a new life in the United States. They wind up in Los Angeles and Procopio gets a job in the big steel mill. Rodriguez’s portrays the union battles, tensions between Blacks and Mexicans, the white domination in the union, in the mill itself, and the fight of the Salcido family for equality and safety within the dangerous mill.

Johnny Salcido, the main protagonist is as strong of a character as any I’ve read. He has his dark side yet he is strong in his love for his wife and family. His portrayal - the young vato loco getting in trouble to the young green mill worker to the activist and father all are so amazingly well done that you just feel like you know him and maybe you do. There is a lot of Johnny Salcido in all of us: the rebel, the fighter, the lover of hearth, home, family. The mill itself is portrayed as a dangerous, toxic yet seductive monster. Mr. Rodriguez brings the reader into the mill; you feel its heat, its intensity, its ugliness and its beauty. From workers grilling their carne asada on an ingot to the racial tensions and divisions, you are in that mill. You can feel the tension, smell the carne. People die in the mill, lose limbs, breath in bad fumes. Workers turn to alcohol, drugs to stay awake in order to work more shifts. It is all too real.

I grew up a Xicana in the shadow of Bethlehem Steel in the 1970s. I remember the men that would come home dirty, black from the fire of the mill and tired. I remember when the mill closed and the rise in drug use; sales of such and violence began to escalate in the barrios where I was now raising my children. I never really tied the two instances together until I read this most remarkable novel. It is as much a social commentary and as well written and gripping as Steinbeck’s. I read one review where the book was well received but the reviewer had a problem with Mr. Rodriguez’s socialist bent. I didn’t see that all. I found the book to be most realistic, the characters were people you cared about, wanted to find out more about. He is a master storyteller and one of the best social commentators of the Xicano in L.A.

No one understands the gangs, the drugs, the jail culture, the strong Xicana men and women, the love we have for our children and culture, the strong worth ethic of the modern and past day Mexican-American as much as Luis J. Rodriguez. He is our Steinbeck. The Music of the Mill hammers out its own glorious song and will be one day a force to be reckoned with. This is more than just a novel. This book has a destiny.