!,The Flor Y Canto International Literary Festival, is having its annual fundraiser with none other than Cherrie Moraga as our special guest!
Join us for a very chingon and special night of musica, arte, poesia, and neighborhood amor as we gather to raise funds for La Mission’s own homegrown and beloved literary festival. Started by Alejandro Murguia, San Pancho’s first Latino poet laureat.,The San Francisco International Flor y Canto Literary Festival honors the long literary history of La Mission as well as highlighting the literature of our connected communities near and far.
Corazon del Cedro will open the evening with beautiful Son Jarochos de Corazon, Art auction featuring rare first edition chicano literature and art donated by local artists,will follow. Then poets Hilary Cruz Meija and Sara Borjas will bless us with their palabras. !Closing out the evening will be la mera mera herself Cherrie Moraga!
BIOS;
Corazon de Cedro is an ongoing evolving musical project started by Evelyn Donaji that creates son jarocho del corazon for the pueblo and beyond.
SARA BORJAS is a Xicanx pocha and a Fresno poet. Her debut collection of poetry, Heart Like a Window, Mouth Like a Cliff was published by Noemi Press in 2019. Sara was named one of Poets & Writers 2019 Debut Poets, is a 2017 CantoMundo Fellow, and the recipient of a 2020 American Book Award. She teaches innovative undergraduates at UC Riverside, lives in Los Angeles, and stays rooted in Fresno. Find her @saraborhaz or at www.saraborjas.com.
Hilary Cruz Mejia (they/she/elle) is a poet and activist from the coastal waters of Guatemala. Her work has appeared in a couple of online magazines. Hilary’s transition to the U.S. as a queer, immigrant, and first-generation college student has been presented in her poetry where she also encourages her readers to preserve the indigenous roots of the lands that were stolen. Outside of writing, she spends her time learning her abuela’s recipes, decolonizing her tongue, and keeping on track with her homework. Follow her on Instagram @hilary_natasha.”
Cherríe Moraga is a celebrated poet, playwright, and essayist. Her mother is Chicana and her father European American, and she grew up in the Los Angeles area, but as a young adult moved to Northern California. A poor reader as a child, she affirms that listening to the women of her mother's family instilled in her the art of telling a story and the blend of Spanish and English that characterizes her writing. She received a B.A. in English (1974) and an M.A. in feminist writings (1981) from San Francisco State University. From 1986 to 1991 Moraga taught in the Chicano Studies Department at the University of California at Berkeley. Moraga's work is courageous and polemical in both Chicano and feminist communities. Speaking as a Chicana feminist lesbian, she has broken the silence surrounding taboo topics such as sexuality and lesbianism, sexism and homophobia in Chicano culture, racism and classism in the white women's movement, and the urgent need for a feminism defined by women of color. Moraga's effort to think through what it means to be Chicana and lesbian in essays that are collages of dreams, journal entries, and autobiographical reflection is an important foundation on which to build further Latina feminist theory. Moraga is well known as coeditor and contributor to the award-winning book This Bridge Called My Back (1981), an anthology of poetry and essays by radical women of color. Coedited with Gloria Anzaldúa, the book provides an analysis of interlocking systems of oppression. Besides the important prefatory material, including the introduction defining the concept of "theory in the flesh," Moraga's work is represented by two poems and an essay. "La Güera" explains how her light skin allowed her to "pass" until she came out as a lesbian. Only then did she understand oppression. The essay documents her painful journey to "my brown mother—the brown in me," and calls for an awareness of the ways in which all women internalize the values of the oppressor. She sees her lesbian identity as another border to be crossed in her critical subjectivity.