Parsons Public Library will host a book discussion of “Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration” by Sam Quinones at 6 p.m. Monday, March 17. Deborah Peterson will lead the discussion. Copies of the book are available now.
The event is the second of three talks in the Beyond the Border series provided by Humanities Kansas. The books explore Latino immigration narratives and how they are essential to the entire multicultural landscape of American literature.
“Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream” is a collection of true stories about Mexican immigrants. The United States has more Mexicans than any other country has immigrants. The stories tell what Mexican immigrants seek here and what they are escaping. While living and reporting in Mexico, Quinones noted the constant flow of Mexicans across both sides of the border. Individuals often make more money in the United States and then take it home to improve both their lives and the lives of their loved ones. The billions of dollars Mexican immigrants send home resemble oil revenues in that they save the country from disaster. But they also help Mexico’s political class postpone the painful reforms that are needed if the two-thirds of the country bogged in poverty is to rise above.
When his father was murdered by the town boss, Antonio Carrillo went to the United States for a gun and an end to his humiliation. Decades later, Delfino Juarez, the poorest kid in his village in Veracruz, trekked through the desert to the United States. He returned to his village with enough money to replace his humiliating family shack with a two-story house. For a while, he was his village’s largest employer.
Deborah Peterson has an M.A. in Chinese from the University of Michigan and has taught Chinese language, East Asian Literature and Tibetan Oral Literature at the University of Kansas and Iowa State University for 30 years. Together with a Tibetan friend, she started an NGO that worked for several years providing solar cookers and school supplies for monastery schools in Tibet.
At 6 p.m., Monday, April 28, Sister Rosemary Kolich will lead the final discussion: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez.
Humanities Kansas, a non-profit cultural organization, sponsors the discussions as part of its Talk About Literature in Kansas program. The group furnished the books and discussion leaders for the Parsons TALK series. More information about Humanities Kansas can be found at www.humanitieskansas.org.
Parsons Public Library is located at 311 S. 17th. For more information, contact the library by calling 620-421-5920.
