Flashing Trump Latino writers tell off Trump in 140-character 'narratives'
By Sabrina Vourvoulias, AL DÍA News Media
Cuentos. That's Spanish for stories. Also, colloquially, lies.
A cuentista, then, is sometimes used to refer to someone who writes stories, but more commonly describes someone, as the Real Academia Española says, "acostumbrado a contar enredos, chismes o embustes." That is, someone who deceives, distorts and spreads anecdote without regard for certainty of fact.
Donald Trump is a cuentista.
"When Mexico sends its people ... they’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists..."
Trump has added insult to injury since then, expanding the group of "killers and rapists" he believes are crossing the border to include other Latin Americans; chastising even his Republican colleagues for speaking Spanish; and refusing to condemn the criminal and inhumane assault on a Mexican homeless man in Boston in which the assailants invoked Trump and his inflammatory statements about Mexicans.
It is hardly a surprise, then, that 67 percent of U.S. Latinos have a 'very negative' view of the presidential candidate.
Recently, nearly 70 Latino public figures (including Pulitzer prize-winning Dominican-American author Junot Diaz and Academy Award-winning Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu) signed an open letter decrying Trump's campaign rhetoric as hate speech that stokes xenophobic sentiment in the country.
As of yesterday, petitions urging Saturday Night Live to drop Trump as the host of tonight's episode had garnered more than 520,000 signatures.
What has galvanized Mexican-Americans (and other U.S. Latinos) is less the specific words Trump uses — although they are certainly hateful and mendacious — than the unselfconciousness of the bias that underpins those word.
Lots of creative work has emerged in counterpoint to Trump's provocations. Mexican comedians have penned a play poking fun at him; cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz has created several editorial cartoons centered on the divisive figure; Trump piñatas and Halloween masks abound, and both street art and hams have borne unflattering portraits of him.
I asked those Latinos whose vocation it is to tell legitimate cuentos — writers and authors — to craft some flash narratives (no longer than 140 characters) in response to Trump's cuentos about Mexicans and immigrants. Directly addressing Trump or talking about him, the writers had much to say about the king of enredos, chismes and embustes.
Ghostly Reagan sounds the horn of Jericho in purgatorial penance. "Mr. Trump!" he cries. "Tear down that wall."
— William Alexander
William Alexander won the National Book Award for his debut novel, Goblin Secrets, and won the Earphones Award for his narration of the audiobook. His other novels include Ghoulish Song, Ambassador, and Nomad.
Not even all your wealth can build a wall that will keep a people's language, lore and love from flowing back and forth from soul to soul.
— David Bowles
David Bowles is the author of the books: Border Lore: Folktales and Legends of South Texas; The Seed: Stories from the River's Edge: Mexican Bestiary: Shattering and Bricolage; and Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry — which won the Texas Institute of Letters translation award in 2014. He is also the editor of Along the River: An Anthology of Voices from the Rio Grande Valley, and Along the River 2: More Voices from the Rio Grande.
IF you’re nominated (and that’s a big “if”), over 25 million Latino voters will tell you what we think of your ugly scapegoating strategy.
— Rosalie Morales Kearns
Rosalie Morales Kearns, a writer of Puerto Rican and Pennsylvania Dutch descent, is the author of the short story collection Virgins and Tricksters (Aqueous, 2012). One of the stories in the collection earned a Special Mention in the 2013 Pushcart Prize volume. She is the founder of Shade Mountain Press.
Calling Trump baboso is redundant. Baboso: (noun) creep, fool, twit, idiot, airhead, see Span. pendejo. Adj.: slimy, salivating, daft, silly; see Span. tonto.
— Rudy Ch. Garcia
Rudy Ch. Garcia is the author of The Closet of Discarded Dreams, and one of the founding members of La Bloga.
Trump/Get off the stump/Sit on your rump/Try to be/A better man/Not such a ham/Begin to chart/The pulse of your heart/It’s not too late/Start
— David Unger
David Unger was bestowed Guatemala's Miguel Angel Asturias National Prize in Literature in 2014 for lifetime achievement — the first author writing exclusively in English to win a major Latin American literature award. He is the author of The Mastermind, The Price of Escape, Life in the Damn Tropics, and In My Eyes, You Are Beautiful, among other titles.
Three things you’ll never have Mr. Trumpeta: class, integrity, and the Latino vote. And good hair. Yeah, you’ll never have that. Never.
— Phillippe Diederich
Phillippe Diederich is a Haitian-American writer and photographer born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Mexico City and Miami. His first novel, Sofrito, was published by Cinco Puntos Press in 2015. His short fiction has won numerous awards including the 2013 Chris O'Malley Fiction Prize from The Madison Review and earned four Pushcart nominations.
... Fake hair, fake brain, fake heart, fake human.
— Alma Luz Villanueva
Alma Luz Villanueva is a Mexican-American poet, short story writer, and novelist. She is the author of numerous books including the novel The Ultraviolet Sky which won the 1989 American Book Award, and Naked Ladies which won the PEN Oakland fiction award in 1994.
Prejudice feeds fear of the unknown, justifies violence against others, & becomes a toxic, massive message when voiced by a prez candidate
— Julie López
Julie López is an award-winning international journalist and the author of Death in the Neighborhood of God.
It's time for more writers and more Latino creatives to weigh in. Tweet and instagram your 140-character flash narratives for Trump and tag them #FlashingTrump. Make them inventive. Make them brilliant. Make them dazzling. (But please, keep them clean and as civil as possible given the subject. 😈)
The important part is that we replace Trump's heartless, lying cuentos with our creatively-framed, truthful, heartfelt and enduring ones.