ABSTRACT
“Spanish Lesson #69: How to Talk Effectively to Your Domestic Help” was originally written for Public Radio. “Robo Esperanto #1”: This text is part of a much larger body of work titled “The Robo-Esperanto Series,” a language invented by the artist in the late ’90s in response to the linguistic vertigo of globalization. With “El Hamlet Fronterizo: Weird Love Poem in Spanglish,” Gómez-Peña writes about trans-continental love/border love. In “Spanglish Prayer for Those Who Have Departed to a World Without Crises,” Gómez-Peña creates a performance text for funerary events and wakes of friends and colleagues. This most recent version was read by the author at the wakes of his three godfathers: Felipe Ehrenberg, James Luna and Rene Yanez. In “Wrong Prepositions: On the Impossibility of Translation,” Gómez-Peña comments on the impossibility of translation and transnational communication. “A Binational Nightmare: A Chronicle Regarding US/Mexico Relationships and Crime Cartels” is a missive addressed to readers in which Gómez-Peña describes a world turned upside down.
