In loving memory of Michelle Johnson Vela Beloved Daughter, Wife, and Mother
Remembering my friend, Michelle
By: Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay
This issue of The Javelina Express is dedicated to Dr. Michelle Johnson Vela, our Profesora Michelle, who taught Spanish in the university’s Department of Language and Literature for over twenty years. Michelle was an extraordinary teacher and scholar. You could see her impact on the students in the way they would run up to her at El Tapatio or HEB and give her a hug. And then they would share their lives for ten minutes while the rest of us waited to get to the lunch table. For over twenty years, Michelle served Javelina Nation with love and dedication; for nine of those years, she led the department as Chair. And Michelle was a loving mom and a beloved wife. In fact, she had so much love to give that she was mom to not only her four sons but also four dogs and a cat. And just like she had to know where her boys were and what they were up to all the time, she would be the first to panic if any of her four-footed kids found an open door and took off for an evening run. To me, she was my colleague, my friend, my mentor, my confidante, and my older sister. She showed me how much there was to love in our Javelina community, and I followed her lead wherever she went—to alumni events, church fundraisers, and LULAC dinners.
In many ways, Michelle’s loss was the first time I had to truly grapple with losing someone close to me. I left India to come to the US to study in 2005. And since then, both my grandparents have passed away. But over the years, I had lost regular contact with them. In fact, slowly, I have drifted apart from many members of my extended family and many of my friends. For the first decade of my life in the US, I had no long-lasting ties; I was always “in transit,” first finishing up my degree and then teaching temporarily, all the while not knowing where my first permanent job would take me. It was only when I showed up here that the Vela family wrapped me up in their world in South Texas. Because Michelle and Roberto had also arrived here one day many years ago and built a life in Kingsville and brought up their beautiful family, they showed me how to become part of this wonderful community. And Michelle was my translator of Kingsville life, teaching me about the difference between a gordita and a taco, to say buen provecho before eating, and not to say taqueria with the accent on the wrong part of the word. Once a teacher, always a teacher.
I will not mourn for Michelle. I miss my friend, but every time I look for her at Mariachi’s or as I walk down the corridors of Fore Hall, I keep her memory alive. So long as I live, I will remember her and share her stories. And I know that she had a similar impact on many of her friends who hold on to her memory just as dearly. She will never be lost to us. Our loved ones are never truly lost to us.
From the Editors’ Desk:
This issue of our beloved student literature journal involved passionate effort and constructive collaboration within our team and department. Like bakers who have spent all night kneading dough and are watching it rise in the oven, we hope you enjoy the bread of our work. Our families were in our minds and hearts when we created this issue, hence our choice of the theme “La Familia.”
We dedicate this issue to our late professor, Dr. Michelle Johnson Vela, whose leadership of our department led many of us to success in our studies. We mourn her loss and will always remember her as part of the Department of Language and Literature’s extended family of professors, staff, and students. We look forward to presenting our next issue to you soon, the theme of which is “New Horizons.”
Joseph Garza Medina and Ydaliah Delgado, Lead Editors
Table of Contents
Poetry
Agustin Omar Perez
Fire Bright, Fire Light Flame Of Love
Dariana Jimenez
Faith Ortiz
Freshmen year has been really hard
Joseph Garza Medina Abuelo
Short Stories
Olivia Colburn
Planteria: Chapter One
Emma Hall
Hunter and the Immortal (Prologue)
Leonel J. Ramirez
Nando’s Revenge on the Rio Grande
Artwork
Fulden Many Ways IV
The Line
Monica Alejandra Perez
My Brother A Father’s Love
Myrka A Gonzalez
Mis Orígenes
Roberto Vela Córdova
Desde un balcón en Villa Caparra
(Para Javier y Maria Isabel en el ’83)
Magda en las Tinajas
Scott Pineda
Sacrificio de Madre
Non-Ficton
James Hallmark
Polo Ramirez
Mis Origenes
By: Myrka A Gonzalez
Crecí en medio de ríos y cerros
Unos más largos y otros más lejos
Corazones sensibles y de hierro
Tierras benditas de ricos festejos.
Mi madre abrazada por la Madre Oriental
Mi padre por un Bravo que agua ha de llevar.
Yo soy de aquí y de más allá
En mi sangre corre los pasos de un largo caminar
Abuelo
By Joseph Garza Medina
You kept us anchored,
Despite your grumpiness and Christmas spirit,
And losing you came too soon
Too soon for life and too soon for a season of death.
I remember you telling me to put an extra cheeseburger under my bed to save for later,
Or how the Carmelite nuns hit you with rulers to keep you from speaking our native tongue,
Or the time we removed tile from the house behind your place off Everhart
Mi abuelo moreno vestido como un buen ranchero
Del otro ni su recuerdo tengo.
A mi abuela “Lencha” se le nota desde el amanecer
A mi abuela Estela aventuras puedes conocer.
Por varios caminos me haz de ver pasar
Polvo, piedras, cemento, chapapote
Pero en ninguno me he de quedar
Laura y Efrén
A mis padres por sus nombres haz de conocer
Jaumavense y Camarguense
Sus orígenes han de ser.
And hundreds of cockroaches ran out from under the floors,
My body was sweaty and disgusted when we called it quits.
I regret not going to Spain,
Not getting into a “good” undergraduate school, meaning one where international relation talking points
Alienated the young Hispanics from their Mestizo consciousness
And all from their empathy for the less fortunate.
But seeing you lying there, the last in the family to see you alive,
I felt the mantle being passed on,
And though I am not always man enough or tough enough to withstand this world’s blows,
I get back up and fight, as tenacious as you.
Nando’s Revenge on the Rio Grande
By: Leonel J. Ramirez
Although this story is a work of fiction, the following is true: I was named after my grandfather Leonel Ramirez who drowned in the Rio Grande River in the 1950s, in Penitas, Texas. He was survived by his wife and seven children. His loss echoed for generations. How does one deal with the loss of a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a person who was all of those things? This story centers on how the loss of my grandfather Leonel affected his youngest brother Nando, and the revenge that would follow on the Rio Grande River. Let’s visit the day he died, through the eyes of Nando.
Nando saw them fish his older brother Leonel’s naked body out of the Rio Grande River. His once hero hermano now a shiny bloated corpse. Ironic, that the fisherman was now being fished out of the water. “How could this happen?” he thought to himself. When they laid him on the grass, he got a closer look, and the image would be burned forever in his mind. The shell of his brother, a once vibrant and joyful man, now a sack of wet meat. He had a bite mark on his left calf and his right arm. Each mark was the same, two rows of puncture marks. There was only one animal on the Rio Grande River that would leave such distinct marks. The catan, and a big one at that.
It was at that moment that Nando made a promesa (a sacred vow), that he would catch and murder that catan just as the catan had murdered his hermano. He grabbed a stick and used it to measure the width of the teeth marks, snapping off the end. This would be his measuring stick, used to make sure he got the right catan, or maybe he would murder all of them, just to be sure. This much was certain, he’d grown up fishing with his hermano, and he knew how to catch a catan
The day after the burial, he returned to the river’s edge and strung up some raw pollo on his fishing line and waited... and waited. It was a hot day, and he brought a tallboy (16oz beer) to quench his thirst. After a long afternoon, he got a bite. It was fierce, his muscles tensed with effort, and the fishing line snapped. “Pinche catan,” he muttered under his breath. Revenge would have to wait. A determined man, he returned the next day, with the strongest fishing line they sold at the nearby feedstore. The man who sold it said it was for deep sea shark fishing. We’ll see about that. Nando baited and waited. As he waited, he thought fondly of the days spent fishing with Leonel, and he also worried about the seven kids that now had no papa. Two days passed like that, and Nando came to the realization that wouldn’t cut it anymore. And why would it? This beast had a taste for human flesh, and pollo was just an appetizer.
cabra for his hook and a six pack of beer for his soul. A few drinks later, he got a bite, a vicious one too. He would have his vengeance on the beast that killed his brother. He was filled with joy and purpose. The line was taut and slowly pulled him in the water. The water was now up to his ankles as he slid down the embankment. He leaned back and held with all his might. Yet he was still being pulled in slowly. He arched his back, and his muscles clenched. The murky water was now up to his waist. Pop! The fishing pole snapped, and the sudden lack of tension caused him to fall back. He released the remainder of the fishing pole to catch himself. “Pinche catan! You ! I am coming for you!” he spat.
He took a moment to collect himself. This wasn’t going to work, not like this. To hunt a prehistoric beast, he would need prehistoric methods. He ran home disgusted by his failure and returned with a shovel, an axe, and a 12 pack of beer, and started digging. He was digging a mouth into the river’s edge. He dug for three days, his hands covered in blisters. Afterwards, you could fit two horses into the u shape he carved into the riverbank. The plan was simple
enough--Nando would place meat at the end for the catan. The catan would swim in, he would drop a mesquite tree to block the exit, then he would kill the catan with a spear. What could go wrong?
He chopped down a tree and placed it at the entrance of the opening, to act like a gate to cover the escape of the catan. He also fashioned two spears from sharpened wooden sticks. And lastly, he placed a quartered chivo at the far end. Then he waited. After the second day, the rotting carcass of chivo started to smell and attract moscas. But still no catan. It wants to hunt, that much was now clear. Nando came back with his prized chivo and placed him in the shallow water and tied him to a nearby tree. It pained him to use his favorite chivo as bait, but his brother deserved revenge. The tequila he brought helped calm his nerves and ease his pain.
Nando sat down and waited for the catan to come. He cracked open a beer and took a few sips of tequila. He stared over the Rio Grande River as the sun set and thought to himself, “How can I get over the loss of my hermano and best friend?” Hours passed into night, and he began to dose off when he heard the chivo shout. Then he heard a splash. The catan swam in like an arrow shot from a bow and chomped down on the neck of the chivo. Nando sprang up and pushed the tree with all his might and it came crashing down blocking the grabbed his spear and flung it at the catan. It missed, and got stuck in the dirt. Luckily, he had a second spear. He flung it with all his might, and it bounced off the tough scales of the
He reached down to get the first spear and slipped on the muddy embankment. There’s a moment when you know you’ve messed up and time slows to a crawl. He landed right in the middle of an angry prehistoric beast and its meal. He scram bled to his feet. The chivo was splashing and screaming, the catan was thrashing, and Nando was now blocking the exit with a spear raised in his hand. The moonlight reflected the bright eyes of Nando and the catan. The silhouette of two predators locked in a death stare, an image as old as time. It charged at Nando as he readied his spear. The as it bit his arm. The momentum of the beast caused Nando to fall back an opening. The catan escaped, followed by a trail of blood.
He crawled out of the hole, wet and bleeding. He would need to clean that wound or it would surely get infected. Matching bite marks to my hermano I guess, he thought to himself. Turns out the bite did get infected. The next night in a fever dream he saw his hermano Leonel. He was wearing a white heavily starched western shirt, blue jeans, black shiny cowboy boots, and a white Stetson.
Leonel said, “Stop with your pendejadas. My ninos need you to step up and be the papa I can no longer be.”
“But what about the catan, hermano?” Nando shouted.
“Like I said, stop with your pendejadas. The catan was trying to save me, not kill me. But I wouldn’t accept its help. Accept my help now, move on from my death, and be the tio my children need now more than ever.”
Nando awoke in a cold sweat. His hermano was right. He needed to be the tio his mihos and mihas needed him to be. He made a new promesa, from this day forward he would grow up; childish nicknames were for children and his childhood was over. From this day forward he would be known as Tio Leonardo.
Tio Leonardo was like a second father to my dad; he taught him to hunt, to BBQ, to shoot, to ride horses, to tell stories, and to drink too much beer. And he never fished again.
Many Ways
By: Fulden
Desde un balcón en Villa Caparra
(Para Javier y Maria Isabel en el ’83)
By: Roberto Vela Córdova
La arquitectura del balcón rehace la memoria hacia afuera para llegar al rostro de la calle ante el momento más íntimo de ustedes. El vértigo de un beso en la frente abre un camino violento de tu imagen y su plural distancia en el contacto del miedo y el coraje, sacudidos ambos.
Raro labio de despedida entre alba y aurora para un mediodía de corazones desatando alucinaciones de amor. Sales a la calle brincando escalones en el perímetro
El Amor de Mi Madre
By: Dariana Jimenez
Para la madre que me crio y cuidó. Me diste el cariño y amor para crecer.
Eres amada. Eres amable.
de las rejas del balcón. Anchaste el margen de la imagen de tu ojo ante la vida caminando sobre la grieta de un dolor preciso contra la esperanza. Saltarín, después del viento del balcón, a la calle. al portón cerrado para abrir el paso del amor. Y nunca has regresado igual, siempre rejuvenecido del beso cayendo con el día de ayer en la sien de un futuro con la bandana bipolar de la sangre y la noche sobre tu boca. Desde ahí se avientan músculos conjugados contra lo gastado del terror, con su capital desatado, momentáneamente incógnitos por esa otra musculatura ahora tensa en la mejilla
Eres maravillosa y llena de vida.
Eres mi girasol fuerte y alta.
Puede que te dejes llevar por el viento pero nunca te dejas caer.
Mi luz de guía seguido por mi padre desde las estrellas.
La mujer que eres, espero llegar a ser.
para la suave caricia de sus labios. Entonces tenso en la mirada para la brisa grave de la memoria, siempre firme en su extensión monumental, hilo de un nervio que se expande sobre el cemento y agita con la pupila una multitud Vas estremecido el mundo desde la voz que cae con el beso, “Ten cuidado mijo”. Cuando truena contra la arena desolada de cuer pos universales, playeraos universitarios de todo género de amor ahora vibrando eléctricos entre el balcón y el recinto de la osadía que rejuvence en el eco de generaciones que buscan tener cuidado para este mundo que hacemos desde el balcón que saltamos.
El dolor que has sentido. pero sigues sorprendiéndome. Viviendo la vida y echándole
Words Matter
By: Fulden
Under the Line
By: Fulden
Tuilp Series
By: Fulden
Mama Baby Ontario Beach
By: Sarah Moshier
Baby Painted Turtle
By: Sarah Moshier
By: Scarrlett Hammond
By: Scarrlett Hammond
Sonnet
By: Michelle Johnson Vela
Magda en las Tinajas
By: Roberto Vela Córdova
Madrina erizada entre piedras y Tinajas. y 5 y 20 y 50 pies, siglos y rocas, brincas, niña de agua y granito que baja del Yunque hacia las olas.
Tus pies brillan de fango taíno, y nadan sirenas del río y el mar, niños y niñas resbalan contigo. Tu voz de lodo
sagrado en el pincel de tu mirada dibuja siluetas para tocarte desprendidos en el vacío y caer al charco de vida y bondad, Y salpicas palabras y vino con el portón abierto al que sale y entra de tu corazón al tesoro lignito de igneo sin ceniza. Maga de melena, va la melena maga y da leña de azabache al sol y la noche para una luna de Marías y mar
eas. Corres tras el astro bello del rubio velo, y tus quilates rubios y negros, mecedores de olas, luces flotando en búsqueda de cilindros de espuma y sal. Tablas para el balance de la justicia bajo los pies, y tú llenas de días el día, enrisada melodía.
Poetry Contributor Bio-Notes
Myrka A Gonzalez was born on January 12, 2002, in Mission, Texas. She comes from a Mexican family from the state of Tamaulipas. She is a Senior at Texas A&M University-Kingsville pursuing a BS in Animal Science and BA in Spanish. During Fall 2023, she became the president of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, one of the oldest societies at TAMUK.
Dariana Jimenez dedicates her poem to her mother who has shown immense strength in the darkest of times. She is Dariana’s inspiration and her motivation to continue pushing in life.
Joseph Garza meDina is a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. He is working on his master’s thesis on modes of gender representation and performance in the video game Cyberpunk 2077 and has presented conference papers at the 2023 Southern Humanities Conference and the 54th Northeast Modern Language Association Convention.
Non-Fiction
James hallmark serves as Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at the Texas A&M University System, overseeing faculty, students, and curriculum. He has served twice as Interim President including 6 months as a Javelina in 2022. He is married (34 years), with one married daughter and a schizophrenic cat.
polo ramirez born to a migrant father and raised on the outskirts of the RGV border, is a doctoral student in Bilingual Education. He holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Education. He has been a cowboy, bartender, teacher, and counselor. His interests include South Texas culture, TexMex language, and food.
Artwork
Faith ortiz is a student at Texas A&M University-Kingsville from Asherton, Texas. Faith is a middle child and an English major. She thinks those two statements describe her personality perfectly. She also has been described as a mediocre chess player, and she enjoys crossword puzzles even though she has never finished one on her own
aGustin omar perez is an honors student who is majoring in Electrical Engineering with a concentration in Power Generation and minoring in Philosophy. He is also President of Tau Beta Pi, the Engineering Honor Society. When he is not busy with coursework and club activities, Agustin enjoys reading, writing poems, and spending time with his family.
monica aleJanDra perez is an honor student in pursuit of a long-held goal: to become a novelist. She spends a good portion of leisure time either dabbling in poetry or reading novels, poetry, and short stories such as Jane Eyre, My Life Stood as
Stories
a Loaded Gun, and The Scarlet Ibis. Monica finds these authors’ great capacity for empathy worthy of emulation and strives every day to write as beautifully as them.
scott pineDa is 22 years old, Mexican/Honduran, from the Rio Grande Valley. He is currently in school at the Texas A&M Irma Lerma Rangel School of Pharmacy and is also pursuing a master’s in business administration at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. He has always had a passion for expression, which led him to the craft of writing.
roberto Vela córDoVa grew up in Puerto Rico, and is father to Liam, Dylan, Brody and Julian. Besides his love for literature and the arts, he loves to dance; navigate the Caribbean waters; spend time at the beach with his puppies, friends, and family; go to music concerts and dance some more; cook; and travel.
leonel J. ramirez grew up in the South Texas Borderlands and spent most of his childhood mending fences, chasing cows, riding horses, digging holes, making tree houses, and hunting birds. He has an unhealthy obsession with jeeps and has spent most of his career in public schools working in special education in the RGV, and is working on his doctorate in Bilingual Education.
oliVia colburn has been writing since she was nine years old, with fiction being the main focus.
emma hall is currently an English Major at Texas A&M Kingsville. She is a member of the Javelina Express Editorial Team as well as a multi-published author. With her novel “Summer in Another Body” available now on Amazon. When she’s not writing, Emma likes to relax with some painting.
FULDEN is Associate Professor in the department of Art, Communications & Theater at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. Drawing upon her cosmopolitan background, Fulden fuses influences from the East and West in her art with clay.
scarrlett hammonD sex (both), favorite food (noodles), currently (expressing love).
sarah moshier started photography back in 2010 for a high school class and developed a passion for it. She loves being outdoors, taking in its beauty and animals, so she combined the two passions together.
meet the eDitorial team:
Joseph Garza Medina
Mariana Alvarado
Ydaliah Delgado
Emma Hall
Leslie Cariaga (Editorial Coordinator)
Mack Allen
Victoria Pina (Treasurer)
Leeya Flores
Joel Villareal
Ann Loera
Ysenia Granados
Kathryn Rodriguez
Adalyssa Hinojosa
Andie Chapa
Ifeanyi Okereke
William Thomas
Angel Ifegbo
Myrka Gonzalez
Graphic Design Team:
Mireya Martinez (Lead Designer)
Thomas Perez (Co- Lead Designer)
Sarita Deleon-Garza
Amy Co
Marina Arredondo
meet the aDVisors:
Aniruddha Mukhopadhyay (Editorial Advisor)
Roberto Vela Córdova
theme For next issue:
Please note the theme for the next issue of The Javelina Express scheduled for Spring 2024: New Horizons. Javelinas are a community of explorers, trailblazers, and harbingers of change. ¡Seamos la voz de Nuevos Horizontes!
If you have stories, poems, essays, or artwork, please email them to us at javelina.express@tamuk.edu.
We will also consider creative work beyond the theme. The next issue will be dedicated to the memory of Dr. Rick Miller.
The Javelina Express is available free-of-cost to the Javelina Community in print and in digital format. If you would like to be added to the mailing list for a print copy, or the listserv for digital distribution, please email us at javelina.express@tamuk.edu.
If you would like to support the running of the magazine with a donation, please contact Dr. Roberto Vela Córdova, Chair of the Department of Language and Literature, at 361-593-2518 or by email at roberto.vela@tamuk.edu.
If you enjoyed the stories, poems, and artwork in this issue, and would like to write to the author, please email your letter to javelina. express@tamuk.edu clearly identifying the piece and the author. We will forward your letter after review.
Acknowledgments:
This magazine is a vision realized by the incredible talent of the students at Texas A&M University-Kingsville who serve on the Editorial Team. From selecting the theme, to reviewing the submissions, to working with the authors to finalize edits, to creating the unique and beautiful design, the student-editors come together and do it all. Therefore, it is only fitting that Issue 3 of The Javelina Express is made possible by the generous support from Student Service Fees. This truly is a publication of the students, for the students, and by the students. We are also very grateful to Dr. Roberto Vela Córdova and the Department of Language and Literature for continuing to believe in us
