Japanese Mexican immigrants and their descendants suffered the consequences of World War II in concentration camps or their families destroyed by the selective detention of hundreds of men and the forced sale of their property, and deportation.
On December 7, 1941, a suicide squadron that had left Japan weeks earlier attacked Pearl Harbor. After this event, the U.S. military campaign against Japan and other Axis countries reached hundreds of Mexican citizens. There were even ivilian deaths.
This “collateral damage” took place slowly and systematically in the Mexican Republic. Japanese immigrants and their descendants suffered the consequences of World War II in various ways: some families were sent to concentration camps or designated areas in Mexico City and Guadalajara, while others were destroyed by the selective detention of hundreds of men in Perote Prison, the forced sale of their property, and deportation. This book gives a partial account of the history of the Japanese-Mexican community during World War II. However, it makes no attempt to be a historically accurate source of information. The task of narrating this story is so complex that it is necessary to incorporate interviews, legal documents, police reports, memoirs, poems, and short stories without specifying the genre, the degree of veracity, or the exact origin of the texts. All names have been changed, and while some situations are fictional, others are told in the first person by those affected to give the reader an opportunity to measure the dimensions of the human heart.
The documents that served as the basis for this book can be found at the General Archives of the Nation of Mexico and the National Archives of the United States. However, oral histories are the cornerstone of this text. I must inform my reader, therefore, that this story is also the work of Fidelia Takaki de Noriega, Eva Watanabe Matsuo, Rodolfo Nakamura Ortiz, the Tanaka Otsuka family, Raúl Hiromoto Yoshino, María Fujigaki Lechuga, and Susana Kobashi Sánchez, as well as the officials of various government departments who wrote the reports, memos, and certificates that appear in this volume.
Selfa A. Chew holds an MFA in creative writing and a PhD in borderlands history from the University of Texas at El Paso. She is an editor for Border Senses Literary Review. She teaches at the University of Texas at El Paso and New Mexico State University.
A moving story inserted with primary documents that
challenges the official discourse through a chorus of voices that interweave in
the life and death of the Japanese-Mexican community, especially its women.
Images, poetry, and words disseminate a unique story—Lourdes Vázquez, author of
Not Myself Without You.
Ïn Silent Herons, Selfa Chew offers us a beautiful, polyphonic testimony, and strikes a balance,
thanks to her art, among her own invention, documents, and oral histories.
Based on true events, but it doesn’t allow to be overwhelmed by them, nor does I
seem to be a mere reconstruction of the past. Materials have been placed in
their places: they are seamlessly intertwined.” —Daniel Orizaga, author
of Minuta: Ensayos sobre literatura.
Selfa Chew discover and disseminates the history of the
Japanese Mexican community that has been erased from national historiography in
order to fill the empty spaces of our history and reveal the hegemonic discourse
and artifices.”—Guadalupe Pérez-Anzaldo, University of Missouri.
This smart, spunky narrator does not walk between two worlds but creates her own path rich in imagination, familial warmth, Mexican tradition, and American popular culture.



Gacha, the drug lord, at the time of his apprehension and death, was carrying a 38-caliber revolver, a nine-millimeter pistol, a submachine gun, and a rifle. A rifle grenade, five war grenades and five rifle loaders were seized from his truck.

In an operation by the Colombian police’s Cuerpo Élite, the drug trafficker Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha, one of the leaders of the Medellín Cartel, was taken down. Author Peter A. Neissa has written a gripping story.
At 1:45 pm on December 15, 1989, units of this specialized group tracked down Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha in a farm on the border between the departments of Córdoba and Sucre. More than 50 agents participated in the operation, which took down alias “El Mexicano” (The Mexican), his son Fredy Rodríguez Celades, and 15 of his lieutenants.
On the Trail of “El Mexicano”
Gacha, who was one of the people on the extradition list to the USA, had been tracked down the day before his death in the Bocagrande sector of Cartagena. From there, he fled toward Coveñas. When he tried to get to this town, a patrol car of the Colombian Naval Infantry spotted him and informed the police.
The criminals escaped on the highway to Tolú and after a confrontation with the police officers, they hid inside La Lucha farm. Their plan was to escape into the forest, but they were caught by an armed helicopter.
Criminal Record
Alias “El Mexicano” was the second most wanted man in Colombia after Pablo Escobar. The police offered a reward of COP 100 million for anyone who gave information on his whereabouts. He was one of the people in charge of ordering the terrorist attacks as part of the war the Medellín Cartel waged on the Colombian state to avoid extradition.
Additionally, he was considered the main person responsible for the distribution of cocaine from Panama to California. He was accused of having participated in the assassination of Minister of Justice Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, Judge Tulio Manuel Castro Gil, Colonel Jaime Ramírez Gómez and the presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán. Furthermore, he had coordinated a series of bomb attacks, which included the bombing of the El Espectador and Vanguardia Liberal newspapers.
He was connected to a series of massacres in the Middle Magdalena Region, in Urabá and in Córdoba. These included the massacres of Punta Coquitos in Antioquia; Mejor Esquina in Córdoba; La Negra in Antioquia; Piñalito in Meta; Segovia in Antioquia; Saiza and El Toma in Córdoba; San Rafael in Antioquia; Otanche in Boyacá; and Finca Honduras in Antioquia.
He started his criminal activities in 1970 smuggling emeralds. In 1976, he joined the drug trafficking business, and he spent the last years of his life financing paramilitary groups. One of the last terrorist attacks attributed to him was the bus bomb that destroyed the Administrative Department of Security (DAS, for the Spanish original) building on December 6, 1989.
Domecq creates and recreates the story and character of a 19th-century historical figure, Teresa Urrea, an illegitimate daughter of master and servant, who breaks down all myths, taboos and traditions and becomes the object of a cult ...
The
Mexican narrative is not prodigal in intense feminine characters, but Teresita
comes to fill some of that lack. The author went to meet her story and, of what
was just a fact,Tomóchica name in an early-century novel(Heriberto Frías' Takechic) built a magnificent and authentic character.
Touring the Veredas del Olvido created a story of the real and the
wonderful thus forging a great fictional female character who transcended
Oblivion. (Aralia
López González)
The
bells had to have been blown into flight, and critics should have fallen little less than on
their knees, in the face of a work of such magnitude as this. From the best
novels by Luis Spota, and that of Juan Rulfo, there was nothing written in
Mexico of this size... which assumes greatness, magnitude, originality and
flight like few novels written in Spanish. I'll be grateful for the advice of
anyone who reads this real literary gem. (Rafael Solana)
Brianda
Domecq offers a great novela
worth being read (...) where the history of Mexico, everyday life at the turn
ofthe last century, magical, religious and mythical beliefs
(converge with) cultural schemes around family, morality, and women... Domecq
offers a literary discourse where aesthetic values lie in its mastery of the
word (...) and a deep world view. (Lorena Paz Valderrábano Bernal)
Veredas del olvido (Teresa Urrea 'la Santa' de Cabora) is a novel that blurs the boundaries between popular fiction and
high literature. It is easy to read, action-packed, and – at the same time –
can be read at a philosophical, analytical and metafiction level. It is a novel
that occupies many spaces: those traditionally considered masculine (history,
politics, philosophy) and those traditionally considered feminine (the domestic
world, emotions and nature). (Deborah
Shaw)
The novel tells the story of Teresa Urrea,
illegitimate daughter of an indigenous woman –Cayetana Chavez– and a rancher
from northern Mexico– Tomás Urrea–, against the background of the dictatorship
of Porfirio Díaz, the wars of the Yaquis Indians in the north, and the first
gestations of the Mexican Revolution. On the scheme of real events, a story
full of magic and humanity is
weeded that transcends the time of action to face the timeless and current
issues of the human being.
In this
comprehensive novel, Domecq creates and recreates the story and
character of a 19th-century historical figure, Teresa Urrea. An
illegitimate daughter of master and servant, Teresa breaks down all myths,
taboos and traditions and becomes the object of a cult, a revolutionary, and
the dominant force in a patriarchal society. The plot, fascinating and complex, is carefully woven,
with each thread in place. (Gabriella de Beer)
La narrativa mexicana no es pródiga en intensos caracteres femeninos, pero Teresita viene a llenar parte de esa carencia. La autora fue al encuentro de su historia y, de lo que solo era un dato, un nombre en una novela de principios de siglo (Tomóchic, de Heriberto Frías) construyó un personaje magnífico y auténtico. Recorriendo las Veredas del olvido creó una historia de lo real y lo maravilloso forjando con ello un gran personaje femenino de ficción que trascendió el Olvido. (Aralia López González)
Veredas
del olvido (Teresa Urrea 'la Santa' de Cabora) es como la célebre caja de Pandora, receptáculo de
múltiples historias… una estupenda novela que vale la pena ser leída, una
novela donde los valores estéticos radican en su dominio de la palabra y se
funden con una profunda visión de mundo. (Lorena Paz Valderrábano Bernal)
Las campanas tenían que haber sido echadas a vuelo, y los
críticos debieran de haber caído poco menos que de rodillas, ante una obra de
tal magnitud como ésta. Desde las mejores novelas de Luis Spota, y la de Juan
Rulfo, no había nada escrito en México de esta talla… que asume una grandeza,
una magnitud, una originalidad y un vuelo como pocas novelas escritas en
español. Me agradecerá el consejo quien lea esta auténtica joya literaria.
(Rafael Solana)
Brianda Domecq ofrece una estupenda novela que vale la
pena ser leída (…) donde la historia de México, la vida cotidiana en el cambio
de siglo pasado, las creencias mágicas, religiosas y míticas (confluyen con)
los esquemas culturales en torno a la familia, la moral, y la mujer... Domecq
ofrece un discurso literario donde los valores estéticos radican en su dominio
de la palabra (…) y una profunda visión de mundo. (Lorena Paz Valderrábano
Bernal)
Veredas
del olvido es una novela que
desdibuja las fronteras entre la ficción popular y la alta literatura. Es fácil
de leer, llena de acción, y –al mismo tiempo- puede leerse a un nivel filosófico,
analítico y de metaficción. Es una novela que ocupa muchos espacios: aquellos
tradicionalmente considerados masculinos (la historia, la política, la
filosofía) y aquellos tradicionalmente considerados femeninos (el mundo
doméstico, las emociones y la naturaleza).
(Deborah Shaw)
La novela cuenta la historia de Teresa Urrea, hija
ilegítima de una mujer indígena –Cayetana Chávez- y un hacendado del norte de
México –Tomás Urrea-, contra el trasfondo de la dictadura de Porfirio Díaz, las
guerras de los indios Yaquis en el norte, y las primeras gestaciones de la
Revolución mexicana. Sobre el esquema de los hechos reales, se teje una
historia llena de magia y humanidad que traspasa la época de la acción para
enfrentar las cuestiones tanto intemporales como actuales del ser humano.
En esta abarcadora novela, Domecq crea y recrea la
historia y el personaje de una figura histórica del siglo XIX, Teresa Urrea.
Hija ilegítima de amo y sirvienta, Teresa rompe todos los mitos, tabúes y
tradiciones y se convierte en objeto de un culto, una revolucionaria, y la
fuerza dominante en una sociedad patriarcal. La trama, fascinante y compleja,
esta cuidadosamente tejida, con cada hilo en su lugar. (Gabriella de Beer)
The Best Peruvian Recipes. Lo Mejor del Sabor Peruano. A color illustrated and extremely practical cookbook for home cooks that want to experience iconic Peruvian dishes.
Ronald and Maricarmen Lemley are bilingual teachers
who have worked for decades teaching English in California, New Mexico, China,
Taiwan, and Lima before settling in their home in Cajamarca, Peru. Maricarmen
and Ronald have been married for 35 years and have written and illustrated five
bilingual children’s books with the help of Floricanto Press.
They are well-known by the fruit and vegetable vendors
in the colorful Mercado Municipal de Magdalena del Mar as well as the Mercado
Central in Cajamarca. They have traveled to the Cusco and Macchu Pichu and the
Amazonian jungle areas of Iquitos and Madre de Dios. After much practice, they
can find and prepare a wide variety of fresh herbs, fruit vegetables, meat
products, and spices that can be used for cooking Peruvian food.
A whole spectrum of Andean, coastal and Amazonian
ingredients are available in Cajamarca due to its unique geographical location.
One can buy the tiny bananas called plátanos-manzanos, yucca, red, yellow
purple and white potatoes, giant papayas, mangoes, passion fruit, five
different kinds of avocados, and numerous other ingredients.
While this is their first cookbook, Ronald`s work
history includes several years as a cook in French/Vietnamese restaurant where
he learned to make Creme Brule, Coc au Vin, Ratatouille, traditional and sourdough
French bread and Crevettes Cognac au Beurre.
The couple spent their free time in both Northern
California and New Mexico, growing extensive gardens with a variety of Peruvian
yellow chiles, black corn, tomatoes, and Peruvian purple potatoes.
Peruvians become experimental when living in the US,
and Maricarmen would often buy Peruvian ingredients at a Latin market to make
flan, aji de gallina, carpulcra, and other dishes.
In Lima, the couple earned certificates of achievement
after attending professional cooking classes and often experiment with their
newly learned recipes.
Please don’t be afraid to shop the Latin American
markets and try out the recipes in this book that offers many unique and easy
to prepare Peruvian recipes.
On her quest, she encounters the very profound, individual, and structural face of discrimination and the debasing effects of denial of information and library services to Latinos and minorities—let them pay taxes, but don’t let them in the library!
It is the story of Elizabeth Irene Martínez, an early Latina
pioneer administrator in the library world—and a leading advocate of library
services to Hispanics and the Mexican and Latino communities. She witnessed and
suffered racial hostilities and fought the denial of library services to
minorities. The story includes the spiritual strength
she drew from her ancestors, her vigor, which helped her to stave off the
professional criticism. This compelling narrative documents her
struggles to provide library services to the underserved populations and the
contentious issues that divided American librarianship then, and today, its
persistent inability to recognize and serve diverse communities, the Latino
population in particular. It also documents the hostile response and backlash
from the white leading administrators and library board members to her
legitimate demands. Her account is a
story of enduring professional friendships, an indictment of the library profession,
bitter betrayals, and overt racial discrimination by leaders of the American
public libraries.
This book comes at an appropriate time when bigotry, racial
discrimination, and inequities in public services have driven to exasperation
victimized minorities and people of good conscience. When the wounds of racial
divisions, lack of services, and conflict in
American institutions—often very well hidden to this day in American
libraries—have come opened and bleed shame, discontent, anger, if not
remorse, sorrow, and regret. On June 26, 2020, four days before this book went to press, and about 144 years after its founding, The American Library Association (ALA), very likely forced by the unprecedented racial demonstrations in the streets of America, has issued a declaration of responsibility: "ALA takes responsibility for past racism, pledges a more equitable association." However, will the status quo change?
Hers is a Chicana
chronicle, a Latina woman’s story, an American story. It is a tale mainly
written on the open stage of American libraries over the last four
decades. The White entrenched library
world saw her mission of diversity and expanding services to minorities as
aggression to white dominance over budget and services. She hopes that young
people of all ethnicities, races, and cultures who are entering any profession
striving for changes to address multicultural communities will find in her
story inspiring to fight for a racially inclusive and pluralistic society.
Voyages of an Oceanless Boat exposes the cracks in our American reality, explores Hood Existentialism, and exonerates and examines the confused and choiceless of the atrocities poverty makes them commit.
This story needed to go beyond the hyper-realism usually associated with representations of the ghetto and its conditions. Searing and powerful, this work could not be more urgent in our present moment. --Roanne Kantor, Professor of English, Stanford University