Latin@ Rising

by Matthew Goodwin

  “El Muerto: Los Cosmos Azteca”

  by Javier Hernandez

  Latin@ Rising: An Anthology of Latin@ Science Fiction and Fantasy

  © 2017 by Wings Press

  All rights revert to the individual editors, authors, and artists.

  Cover image: “Luz nocturna” © 2016 by Liliana Wilson.

  Used by permission of the artist.

  Frontispiece: “El Muerto: Los Cosmos Azteca” © 2016 by Javier Hernandez.

  Used by permission of the artist.

  ISBN: 978-1-60940-524-3 (Paperback original)

  E-books:

  ePub: 978-1-60940-525-0

  Mobipocket/Kindle: 978-1-60940-526-7

  Library PDF: 978-1-60940-527-4

  Wings Press

  627 E. Guenther

  San Antonio, Texas 78210

  Phone/fax: (210) 271-7805

  On-line catalogue and ordering:

  www.wingspress.com

  Wings Press books are distributed to the trade by

  Independent Publishers Group

  www.ipgbook.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication:

  Names: Goodwin, Matthew David, editor.

  Title: Latin@ rising : an anthology of Latin@ science fiction and fantasy / edited by Matthew David Goodwin.

  Other titles: Latina rising | Latino rising

  Description: San Antonio, Texas : Wings Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016027239| ISBN 9781609405243 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781609405267 (kindle/mobipocket ebook) | ISBN 9781609405250 (epub ebook) | ISBN 9781609405274 (library pdf)

  Subjects: LCSH: American literature--Hispanic American authors. | Science fiction, American. | Fantasy literature, American. | Hispanic American literature (Spanish)--Translations into English.

  Classification: LCC PS508.H57 L36 2017 | DDC 810.8/01508968073--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016027239

  Except for fair use in reviews and/or scholarly considerations, no portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author or the publisher.

  CONTENTS

  Javier Hernandez: “El Muerto: Los Cosmos Azteca”;

  Foreword: Matthew David Goodwin

  Introduction: Frederick Luis Aldama

  Kathleen Alcalá: “The Road to Nyer”

  Pablo Brescia: “Code 51”

  Pedro Zagitt: “Uninformed”

  Pedro Zagitt: “Circular Photography”

  Sabrina Vourvoulias: “Sin Embargo”

  Daína Chaviano: “Accursed Lineage”

  ADÁL: “Coconauts in Space”

  Ana Castillo: “Cowboy Medium”

  Ernest Hogan: “Flying under the Texas Radar with Paco and Los Freetails”

  Junot Díaz: “Monstro”

  Richie Narvaez: “Room for Rent”

  Edmundo Paz-Soldán: “Artificial”

  Steve Castro: “Through the Right Ventricle”

  Steve Castro: “Two Unique Souls”

  Alex Hernandez: “Caridad”

  Carmen Maria Machado: “Difficult at Parties”

  Giannina Braschi: “Death of a Businessman”

  Giannina Braschi: “Burial of the Sardine”

  Carlos Hernandez: “Entanglements”

  Alejandra Sanchez: “The Drain”

  Daniel José Older: “Red Feather and Bone”

  Carl Marcum: “A Science Fiction”

  Carl Marcum: “SciFi-ku”

  Marcos Santiago Gonsalez: “Traditions”

  Acknowledgments

  Permissions, Publication Histories and Translation Credits

  About the Editor

  About the Author of the Introduction

  To Nahir, always.

  Nahir and I dedicate this book to our daughter, Violet Mariluz, who will be the one living in the futures imagined here.

  FOREWORD

  Matthew David Goodwin

  Latin@ Rising is a collection of science fiction and fantasy stories written by U.S. Latinos and Latinas. While there have been numerous anthologies of Latin@ Literature, this one focuses specifically on the confluence of science fiction and fantasy. The collection works like an eclectic mixed tape (playlist) in which there is an ebb and flow as you move through the loud and brash, the quiet and thoughtful. The book contains writers you may recognize such as Daína Chaviano and Ana Castillo, and it contains authors who are relatively new on the scene such as Alejandra Sanchez and Richie Narvaez. There are comforting and familiar stories, strange tales that will disturb your dreams, and then of course, las sorpresas.

  Like any good mixed tape, this anthology expresses the flavor of a cultural moment. There is a growing movement of scholars and fans who are recovering the history of Latin@ science fiction and fantasy, and promoting the many contemporary writers and artists who have turned to these genres. It is the bubbling up of curiosity about Latin@ science fiction and fantasy which we hope to uncork with this anthology. This energy is present in the fiction as well, and the stories that bookend the collection express this energy. Even when there is a rushing sense of urgency as in Kathleen Alcalá’s “The Road to Nyer,” and even when a techno-future comes crashing in as in “Traditions” by Marcos Santiago Gonsalez, the deep call of the past resounds. Latin@ Rising taps into this back-and-forth from the past to the future, and hopes to express the enthusiastic energy particular to the growth of the Latin@ community in the United States.

  But why join science fiction and fantasy together? Beyond the simple fact that many readers of fantasy also like to read science fiction, and vice versa, the two genres are classically difficult to firmly pry apart and are often umbrelled under categories such as speculative fiction or imaginative literature. In that shared space, they move beyond the constraints of realist narrative, are generally judged by their capacity to imagine new worlds, and they often invite allegorical readings. As a rule of thumb, science fiction narratives remain tied to the laws of natural science while fantasy stories depict supernatural, magical, and unexplained events (Frederick Luis Aldama will be discussing further the signfiance of science fiction in his introduction). But in truth these two major genres have been in dialogue for quite a while, and like many of the stories included in this anthology, very often one story will draw on both traditions. In E.T.A. Hoffmann’s 19th century short story “The Sandman,” for example, it is exactly the confrontation between the fantastical and scientific explanations of strange events which move the narrative to its ultimate tragic ending. It is useful to think about the science fiction and fantasy traditions as distinct entities, but it is just as important to bring this rowdy family together.

  The shadow of magical realism haunts any discussion of Latin@ science fiction and fantasy. This state of affairs rises from the popularity of Latin American magical realist works such as Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, which first appeared in English in 1970. For better or worse, magical realism (in which fantastical elements are included in the narrative in such a way that they seem unsurprising) then formed the boundaries of Latin@ literature for the general reading public. My experience is that too many writers have been pushed (by academics, publishers, or financial reasons) to write in a magical realist style even though it was not exactly what they wanted to write. In addition, it has been common among readers to unthinkingly categorize a story written by a Latin@ as magical realist when there is just a hint of something strange or even when the story is flat out science fiction or fantasy. At its worst, this imposed magical realism is a way to relegate U.S. Latinos and Latinas to the realm of the irrational, the mythological, effectively cutting off the ability to engage science and technology. One
or two of the stories in this anthology could be categorized as magical realist; however, the point is not that there is a problem with magical realism as such, since it is a wonderfully rich genre with great political potential, but that magical realist stories should be joined to their brothers and sisters of fantasy and science fiction.

  In his essay “Racism and Science Fiction,” Samuel R. Delany warns against the use of narrow categories like “African-American science fiction.” The separateness which such categories enact is congruent with the separateness of racism, as he puts it clearly “… what racism as a system does is isolate and segregate the people of one race, or group, or ethnos from another” (393). This idea of Delany’s is essential and it is not something that we should get away from or erase. Diversity very quickly can become multicultural segregation and Delany’s idea should stand as a reminder. What we hope to do in this anthology is to counter the separateness of Latin@ science fiction and fantasy by presenting a thrilling multiplicity of writers and stories, and by demonstrating that these writers have been part of the genres all along. We hope to demonstrate the actual breadth of genres being used by Latin@ authors and so show that Latin@ literature is, and has been, wider than previously thought.

  By way of Delany’s warning, the authors included in this anthology come from a wide range of backgrounds, including Latin@ authors from both coasts and from eight different national traditions. Some of the writers have substantial connections to Latin America and the Caribbean and write primarily in Spanish, others were born and raised in the United States and write only in English. All of them are comfortable in multiple worlds. The literary backgrounds of the authors display the interweaving lines of the publishing worlds, some connected primarily to the category of Latin@ literature, others to science fiction or fantasy. In these ways, our assembly of authors mirrors the complexity of twenty-first century Latin@ communities.

  Though the anthology uses the term “Latin@,” this anthology is comprised of authors based in the United States, not Latin America. Fortunately, a number of anthologies of Latin American science fiction and fantasy in translation are now available: Cosmos Latinos and Three Messages and a Warning are two examples. There is, nevertheless, something unique about the experience of those of Latin American origin, recent or distant, who are living in the United States such that a distinct anthology is merited. And while there is not one kind of U.S. Latin@ experience, there are historically some overlapping themes, such as migration, colonialism, conflict between Latin@ and Anglo groups, code-switching between Spanish and English, and an indigenous political heritage much different from indigenous groups in the United States. The way these concerns are expressed differs from story to story. In Alex Hernandez’s “Caridad,” which is centered on the second generation immigrant experience, American individuality is pitted against the collective Latin@ family, while in Ernest Hogan’s “Flying under the Radar with Paco and Los Freetails” it is the Chicano individual who stands outside the trap of American imperialism. In Sabrina Vourvoulias’ “Sin Embargo,” the number of cultures in dialogue expands out into a multi-ethnic and very lively mix. The concerns may be similar, but these stories ultimately show that the configurations of what “Latin@” means is multiple, and ever growing.

  Latin@ Rising certainly expresses some of my personal taste in its selection, in particular the number of works that deal with the experience of migration and dislocation. It is a topic I am personally interested in and it directs my creative endeavors. Science fiction and fantasy are uniquely able to deal with the experiences of migration in that they are generally dependent on the existence of at least two worlds, and it is migration that puts these worlds in contact. Science fiction theorist Darko Suvin observes that it is “a voyage to a new locus” that creates the novum (the new element) of a science fiction story (71). And while the relationship between migration and the genres is important in understanding what is going on in Latin@ science fiction and fantasy, readers will find a host of themes in this anthology. A number of the stories are politically oriented while some would be better described as psychological tales. Some focus on community-specific issues while some have nothing that could be identified as specifically Latin@. All are excellent stories that maintain the wonder and astonishment that only science fiction and fantasy can offer. Punto.

  Works Cited

  Delany, Samuel R. “Racism and Science Fiction.” Dark Matter: a century of speculative fiction from the African diaspora. Ed. Sheree R. Thomas (New York: Warner Books, 2000), pp. 383–397.

  Suvin, Darko. Metamorphosis of Science Fiction (Yale University Press, 1979).

  Note: We have retained individual author’s paragraph styles rather than imposing strict stylistic conformity.

  INTRODUCTION

  Confessions from a Latin@ Sojourner in SciFilandia

  Frederick Luis Aldama

  I have a confession to make. Science fiction in comic books, TV, and film got me into world literature — and not mainstays of a school curricula with its Austens, Twains, and Fitzgeralds. As a teen I did feast on these authors and others such as Borges, Cortázar, García Márquez, Rushdie, but only after I’d discovered the SciFi storyworlds of Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Superman … The Fantastic Four; only after I’d put myself on a strict and steady diet of Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, Stanislaw Lem, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, William Gibson, Frank Herbert, Ursula LeGuin, and Edwin Abbott, among others. And, while I became a big fan as a young man of Italian neo-realist and French New Wave cinema (enamored especially with Jean-Luc Godard’s metafictional SciFi Alphaville) as well as alternative flicks from the Americas, it was films like The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Donnie Darko that had the biggest influence on my choice of career: to teach, study, and write about narrative fiction in all its worldly guises.

  Of course, with the veneer of seriousness that envelopes the academy and that generally considers SciFi lowbrow, it takes some huevos to admit that this was instrumental in my coming of age as a professor. While I was living the cultural studies revolution, with few exceptions like Octavia Butler and Samuel R. Delany, SciFi remained hidden within scholarly shadows. It continues to be the case today.

  Yet, isn’t it here that we see some of the most incredible storytelling innovation taking place? This is certainly the case with cultural phenomena created by and about Latinos and Latinas — the area of study that has kept me busy for the last couple of decades. I think of comic book author/artists, Los Bros Hernandez, whose first parachute drop into the comic book scene was with Love & Rockets — a series that intermixed UFOs and flying Latina superheroes with Latin American melodramas and civil uprisings. I think of what they were able to achieve in their SciFi infusion and remastering of Dean Motter’s and Paul Rivoche’s otherwise tellurian Mister X. I think of their use of the SciFi conceit in the making of their futuristic thriller, Citizen Rex, and its center-staging of civil rights struggles. I think of Jaime Hernandez’s God and Science: Return of the Ti-Girls that takes us into uncharted physical, social, and behavioral spaces with the creation of superhero Latinas like Maggie, Angel, Alarma, and Xochitl. I think of Frank Espinosa’s German Expressionist, Japanese fine-art inspired Rocketo that’s set 2,000 years into the future where only Mappers exist with a memory of place to navigate a planet filled with Dogmen, Fishmen, and other hybrid ontologies. I think of Alex Rivera’s film Sleep Dealer that immerses viewers within a U.S./Mexico borderland filled with Coyotecs and high-tech neural implants (or nodes) that allow for global capitalist exploitation of the Latin@ population as virtual braceros working as nannies, high-rise welders, and the like — till they die from cognitive and physical overloads. I think of other cinematic visionaries such as Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror) and Guillermo del Toro (Pacific Rim) that create SciFi storyworlds to present rich and complex multiracial subjectivities. I think even of TV shows like The Event that features an Afrolatino President. I think of the reboot of Battlestar Galactica that
stars Chicano actor Edward James Olmos as William Adama — leader and savior of the Capricans, progenitors of humankind.

  Of course, storytelling innovation in Latin@ SciFi takes place also in those good old fashioned formats: the novels and short story. In addition to those wonderfully varied and rich short stories collected in Latin@ Rising, I think of novels such as Rescue from Planet Pleasure (Mario Acevedo), (Cortez on Jupiter, High Aztech, Smoking Mirror Blues (Ernest Hogan), Ink (Sabrina Vourvoulias), Signal to Noise (Silvia Moreno-García), The Closet of Discarded Dreams (Rudy Ch. Garcia), The Hunted (Matt de la Peña), The Dinosaur Lords (Victor Milán), Shadowshaper (Daniel José Older), The Smoking Mirror (David Bowles), and Atomik Aztex (Sesshu Foster). All of these Latin@ inflected time-spacescapes open readers’ senses, thoughts, and feelings, to new ways of being in the world.

  Certainly, and my brief summary of my journey through SciFilandia already makes this abundantly clear, this storytelling mode has been and continues to be considered unworthy of our study and teaching. Even though we have a Popular Cultural Studies minor at Ohio State University, when SciFi is taught, it’s on the books as a special topics course. And, if graduate students were inclined to write on SciFi alone, faculty would likely encourage the student to mix up his or her dissertation with other storytelling modes — for job placement marketability. This doesn’t mean, of course, that we should stop studying and trying to understand how SciFi narrative fiction is built and consumed. It’s an object out there that we create and consume abundantly. It demands our scholarly attention.

  With this in mind I ask: What is SciFi — Latin@ or otherwise? After all, isn’t narrative fiction generally a carefully crafted and willful realization of our counterfactual capacity to create storyworlds that potentially open us to experiential newness?

  I’m not the only one asking such questions. Indeed, much ink has been spilled trying to get at how SciFi narrative fiction is built — and usually how science and scientific knowledge (in varying degrees of hard and soft reference to science) inform how its storyworlds are built differently from, say, straightforward realism. For Darko Suvin, it is a “literature of cognitive estrangement” (Metamorphosis of Science Fiction 4) that jolts readers into action for social change. For Gerry Canavan and Priscilla Wald, it is the what if? question that characterizes SciFi and allows readers to think about our future and about Otherness and difference. It is, as they remark, the making of “a funhouse mirror on the present, a faded map of the future, a barely glimpsed vision of alterity, and the prepped and ready launchpad for theory today” (247).