My first post, I think.

In order for me to send a post to William Nericcio of UCSD, Blogspot wanted me to create a blog. Everyone wants me to create a blog. So I have created a blog. This is the first post of my blog, I think.

Hello from Oberlin and thanks again for the engaging talk, Memo.

Concerning your use of César Romero in your talk, you collage and your book: I don't have a reliable source for the rumor that César Romero declared that he was the bastard grandson of José Martí, I have the most unreliable source of them all, Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesar_Romero

You'll note that according to that Wikipedia "trivia section" at the bottom, the Simpsons made the César Romero/ César Chávez connection also. Did you steal it subconsciously from them, or did your sister go out to dinner with somebody on the staff of the show and leak your ideas? I smell a lucrative lawsuit....

I read the rumor in an excellent novel by Guatemalan-American novelist Francisco Goldman, The Divine Husband (2004), sort of about José Martí, more about two girls in the Guatemala of the 1870s, one who becomes the wife of theLiberal Dictator, the other a novice before the dictator closes the convents, and then a bilingual secretary; eventually both emigrate to New York City. It is full of good stuff; the more direct and affecting novel about Guatemala and America is Goldman's first book, The Long Night of White Chickens (1992), in which a mixed-blood family in Boston gets a servant girl from a Guatemala orphanage; she grows up to attend Harvard and to return to Guatemala to start up her own orphanages, but is murdered during the guerrilla period. I like them both, in part because Goldman complicates the definition of "U.S.Latino" with his characters, without being an idiot like Rodríguez.

Thanks again for the talk!

Patrick O'Connor