Chicana Falsa

Michele Serros collection of 26 stories and poems about the Chicano/a experience living in Oxnard proves brilliant. Issues of language, gender, race, memory, and ethnic isolation are blended with irony, humor and wit through simple poetry that speaks volumes about the complexity of living in our Chicana/o pueblo/community. My favorite poems included "La Letty," "Tag Banger's Last Can," "Manos Morenas" and the excellent "Dead Pig's Revenge."This book is a homage to Serros' mother who passed on, leaving the artistic touch to her daughter. Thus, Chicana Falsa proves to be a testament to Serros' role as a torch bearer and carrier of excellent artistic and cultural contributions by brilliant Chicana escritoras. This book is an excellent read for students being introducted to Chicana/o literature. Students in high school and college will benefit either in creative writing courses, literature courses or women's studies courses.Este libro tiene la energia y fuerza que se requiere para contar nuestras vidas con honor, dignidad y memoria. Viva Michele! Gracias for this, your gift to us!

If you want to sneak a peek into the "Chicano" world. Or are a Chicano who wants to make sure your family is not the only one that is "that way." This is your book. The pages turn quickly and the laughs come just as fast.

I had the opportunity to hear Michelle Serros read her poetry years ago at a teacher conference in Ojai, CA. Not only is she a fabulous poet, but a wonderful speaker/reader too.Nothing is better for a teacher than to be able to pair Ginsberg (Whitman in the Supermarket) with Serros' veggies in the frozen foods section.For anyone with an awareness--tangential or full on--with the southwest, this poetry is not to be missed.

Michelle is an incredible writer with great insight on how it is to be a not so perfect Mexicana in a place where your heritage is the most defining thing about you. I was also born and raised in Oxnard, California and it was like reading a running diary of a friend who has shared similar experiences. It made me proud to see another Latina coming out of Chiques who made something of herself, and a writer no less. She and her writing are an inspiration to me and to the many other Latinas out there who are trying to figure themselves out with our heritage as the jumping point. This is the type of book you'll want to flip through from time to time when the study or work load gets too mundane and you want to come back to who you remember yourself as.

Serros writes lucidly, brilliantly, with great pathos, humor, and insight, of her unique Chicana experience. But with "famous bologna cheese rolls," a "Farrah hairdo" sister guessing the values of appliances on "The Price is Right," and a typical family silenced and paralyzed by old grudges at the funeral of a great-grandfather, one would be hard pressed to make the case that these poems and stories are only about Chicanos (or Americans for that matter). For this is, above all, a very human book, a book built on solid universal appeal, widely accessible and concerned first and foremost with that main objective of any good writer, regardless of ethnic background: creating good writing. And Serros accomplishes this with amazing success by presenting writing which never preaches or strives to throw politics in our faces, but rather, which simply focuses on telling a good story, on putting words together to explore emotional issues and experiences, and on trying to make some sense out of this thing of being human. Life as a "Chicana" is indeed changing--has changed--since the term was first appropriated more than thirty years ago by the first Chicano activists, but as mainstream America finally begins to absorb this, we find in Michele Serros the perfect balance of Chicano awareness and pop American culture, the right combination of grace, intelligence, and compassion, to push both cultures forward--together--to the next level.