Rob McLennan Asks Wendy Trevino 12 or 20 Questions

Wendy Trevino, author of Cruel Fiction (Commune Editions, 2018), answered rob mclennan's "12 or 20 (second series) questions." We'll take a look at our favorite of these questions: "What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?" and the response it elicits:

There’s this anonymously authored pamphlet you can find online that I keep coming back to: “Who Is Oakland?: Anti-Oppression Activism, the Politics of Safety and State Co-optation” (https://escalatingidentity.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/who-is-oakland-anti-oppression-politics-decolonization-and-the-state/). I wish everyone who cares about anti-racism would read it.

 

Women, Race & Class, by Angela Davis, & “Rape, Racism & the White Women’s Movement,” by Alison Edwards (http://www.sojournertruth.net/rrwwm.pdf) & “From Servitude to Service Work: Historical Continuities in the Racial Division of Paid Reproductive Labor” by Evelyn Nakano Glenn are 3 texts I wish every anti-racist feminist would read.

 

Black & Brown: African Americans& the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920 by the historian Gerald Horne changed my life & I’d recommend exploring his work in general.

 

The Fire & the Word: A History of the Zapatista Movement by Gloria Muñoz Ramirez, which I read after Tongo Eisen-Martin recommended it to me, has been critical to my thinking about indigenous struggle.

 

Reading Otros Valles by Jamie Berrout in 2016 was the first time I felt truly excited about a writer coming out of the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Discovering the work of barrio historian Eduardo Martinez, who writes for Neta RGV, was the second. I highly recommend checking out these 2 writers.

 

The anonymously authored “You Can’t Shoot Us All: On the Oscar Grant Rebellions” (https://ruinsofcapital.noblogs.org/files/2014/11/youcantshootusall.pdf) is a classic.

 

There are entirely too many writers who are important to my work & life to name, really, but I do want to also mention the writer & translator David Rojas & all the writers involved with Enjambre Literario—but especially Brenda Navarro. David translated my chapbook “BRAZILIAN IS NOT A RACE” & an interview I did with Chris Chen “Mexican Is Not a Race” (published by The New Inquiry) into Spanish & Enjambre Literario published it in the summer. It means the world to me that Brazilian no es una raza exists & I’m so appreciative of all the work that David & Brenda & the other writers at Enjambre Literario have done to promote it.