{"id":43049,"date":"2021-12-25T15:39:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-25T22:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rudolfo-anaya-weaved-bilingual-holiday-tale-for-children\/"},"modified":"2021-12-25T22:39:00","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T22:39:00","slug":"rudolfo-anaya-weaved-bilingual-holiday-tale-for-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/rudolfo-anaya-weaved-bilingual-holiday-tale-for-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Rudolfo Anaya weaved bilingual holiday tale for children"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An
An illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in the American Southwest when he died in 2020 of natural causes. The bilingual tale is being published posthumously this year. (Moises Salcedo\/ Museum of New Mexico Press via AP)<\/span>Moises Salcedo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

SANTA FE \u2013 An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a bilingual children\u2019s book after his 2020 death, telling a story about Christmas in the American Southwest.<\/p>\n

\"Rudolfo
Rudolfo Anaya<\/span>Morgan Petroski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The tale from Rudolfo Anaya, who died from natural causes at 82, is being published posthumously for the holiday season by Museum of New Mexico Press with parallel text in Spanish and English. The story extends a cycle of Anaya’s illustrated children\u2019s books with a playful cast of animal characters, centered around a tiny, inquisitive owl named Ollie Tecolote.<\/p>\n

The book was crafted by Anaya painstakingly in his waning year as an invitation to children to explore literature in English and Spanish, said Enrique Lamadrid, a publisher and retired chairman of the Spanish teaching department at the University of New Mexico. Lamadrid collaborated closely with Anaya in his final years to translate \u201cOwl in a Straw Hat\u201d series into Spanish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe crafted that really, really, really carefully so that kids would be comfortable,\u201d said Lamadrid, who first befriended Anaya in the 1970s. \u201cYou start with love. You have to fall in love with your second language in order to be any good with it at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anaya achieved lasting literary fame and influence with the novel \u201cBless Me, Ultima\u201d in 1972 about a boy\u2019s coming of age in post-World War II New Mexico under the guidance of a traditional spiritual healer. The book became a movie \u2013 and an opera.<\/p>\n

\"An
An illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in the American Southwest when he died in 2020 of natural causes. The bilingual tale is being published posthumously this year. (Moises Salcedo\/ Museum of New Mexico Press via AP)<\/span>Moises Salcedo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anaya wrote his \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story\u201d for children initially in English, sprinkling in a smattering of Spanish-language words and phrases about Hispanic holiday comfort food and traditional Christmas pranks performed by \u201cabuelos.”<\/p>\n

Translated literally, \u201cabuelos\u201d means grandfathers or grandparents, while it\u2019s also used as slang for costumed family elders in northern New Mexico who traditionally go house-to-house at Christmastime to ask startled children whether they have been naughty or nice.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s images are from painter and pop-culture muralist Moises Salcedo \u2013 who goes by El Mois\u00e9s \u2013 and provide a splashy visual tour of winter holiday traditions in northern New Mexico, from handcrafted \u201cfarolito\u201d candle lights to steaming \u201cpozole\u201d stew and an adventure that touches upon the three wise men.<\/p>\n

\"An
An illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in the American Southwest when he died in 2020 of natural causes. The bilingual tale is being published posthumously this year. (Moises Salcedo\/ Museum of New Mexico Press via AP)<\/span>Moises Salcedo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Michelle Garcia, a preschool teacher for the city of Albuquerque, reads an earlier Owl in a Straw Hat book to her 4- and 5-year-old students, seated in a semicircle, allowing for comments and questions.<\/p>\n

Hispanic traditions run deep in New Mexico, where Spanish settlers arrived in the 1598. Nearly half of the state\u2019s population claims Hispanic heritage, and some students in Garcia’s class \u2013 but not all \u2013 recognize the Spanish words in Anaya\u2019s book. Garcia says a short English-Spanish glossary in the book helps her answer any questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just a such a variety of wording, they can relate, especially if they\u2019re from Chicano descent or any kind of Spanish descent,\u201d said Garcia, who traces her Hispanic roots and comfort with Spanish expressions to grandparents in northern New Mexico and southernmost Colorado.<\/p>\n

Garcia took a day off to meet Anaya shortly before his death, knowing that he would appear at the dedication of a public library in his name.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he met his wife at the library,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cIt was just this amazing story to encourage children to come to the library and to read and to open a book. It just encouraged me to tell those stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An
An illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in the American Southwest when he died in 2020 of natural causes. The bilingual tale is being published posthumously this year. (Moises Salcedo\/ Museum of New Mexico Press via AP)<\/span>Moises Salcedo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"An
An illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in the American Southwest when he died in 2020 of natural causes. The bilingual tale is being published posthumously this year. (Moises Salcedo\/ Museum of New Mexico Press via AP)<\/span>Moises Salcedo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

illustration from the newly published children\u2019s book titled \u201cNew Mexico Christmas Story,\u201d from Museum of New Mexico Press. The book is written by Rudolfo Anaya with artwork by El Moises and a Spanish translation from Enrique Lamadrid. An author known as the father of Chicano literature left behind a children\u2019s tale about Christmas in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[815],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-associated-press-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43049"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43049\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43049"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}