milestone: 2013 Ⅲ EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE ANGELES LOS EAST milestone: 2013 COVER ILLUSTRATIONS: Saul Auilera, Oxymoron (BACK); Elmer Guevara, Phobia (FRONT) EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE Milestone Cover 2013.indd 1 11/7/13 3:18 PM milestone: 2013 1 milestone: 2013 EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE Monterey Park, California Milestone2013.indd 1 11/8/13 8:50 AM 2 EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE milestone: 2013 Editors Joan Goldsmith Gurfield, Dolores Carlos, Alexis Solis Selection Staff College Literary Magazine Editing Class of Spring 2013 (English 32) and a panel of editors Book Design Patricia Heckman Cover Artwork Saul Auilera Elmer Student Artwork Saul Aguilera, Armando Bobadilla, Jessica Daveata, Elmer Guevara, Gabby Nunez, Christian Gonzalez, Jackie Gonzalez, Victoria Jimenez, David Lim, Kris Murillo, Rene Pacheco, Teresita Vasquez, Vivian Phu, William Situ East Los Angeles College 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez Monterey Park, California 91754 Milestone is published by the East Los Angeles College English Department. Material is solicited from students of the college. Milestone2013.indd 2 11/8/13 8:50 AM milestone: 2013 3 Table of Contentsi Editors’ Note . 5 Jasmin Acosta Las Mujeres . 6 Efrens Acunes Dream Me This. 13 Raul Aguilar Night Artist . 14 Carla Calderon No Quiero . 15 Shenton Bedgood Delusional Love . 17 Carla Calderon The Lakes of Our Fathers Were not Like the Others . 21 Delfino Camacho The Baseball . 22 From 151st to 152nd . 24 Jazmin Dizon I Can’t Remember . 25 Cindy Garcia Snow White . 26 Jackie Gradilla The Complimentary Bandit. 27 Damien Guzman The Ghetto . 32 Justin Jacobo The Fail of Gain . 33 Elmast Kozolyan Children of the Moon . 34 Sandra Lazo Llamas Wine & Dine . 35 Backyard BBQ’s . 36 Warrior . 37 Erik Luna I Am an Idiot . 38 Jenny Luu Friend to the End . 39 Bryant Mejia Life of a Dream . 40 Matthew Mejia As Paint . 41 Of Raindrops . 43 Matthew Nava The Hare’s Revenge . 46 Kerplunk’d . 47 Ehecatl Negrete Falling Hair . 58 Julianne Obregon Transition . 50 Dejah Sandoval Humming . 51 Traci Tarnowski Eltit on . 52 Genevieve Velez The Wait . 54 Andrea Villa Amor /Love . 56 Vivid Past. 57 Reclaiming Herself . 69 Qi Zhang Silence . 62 Angelica Zavala Visiting the Past . 64 Contributors . 66 Milestone2013.indd 3 11/8/13 8:50 AM 4 EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE VICTORIA, Trompe L’oeil Milestone2013.indd 4 11/8/13 8:50 AM milestone: 2013 5 Editors’ Noten ELCOME TO MILESTONE 2013! We are proud to present Wsome of the best works by students of all levels here at ELAC. These great works come from a variety of sources, including our Creative Writing classes, which are offered every semester. (Some of the students thank their teacher, in the contributors’ notes, at the end of this journal.) Sometimes, individual students are inspired to write a poem, a story, a dream, or they may take ideas from a journal or diary entry. Similarly, art students who are represented here produce great works in their classes, and some have been inspired to go further on their own. Remember that many famous writers and artists did not receive acceptance on their first tries at submission. If that happened to you, don’t be discouraged. Keep writing, drawing, painting, and keep submitting to literary journals like Milestone. For next year’s issue, we are setting up a Dropbox account, to make the submission process easier. You will need to have all your contact information on each piece you submit, or it will be disqualified. That information consists of: your name, your email, your address, your phone number. See upcoming flyers for details of when and how to submit your work. Special thanks to Joshua Castro for his efforts to help us archive past issues of Milestone, and to get us on Figment and other new media. Keep writing! — Joan Goldsmith Gurfield, Dolores Carlos, and Alexis Solis with help from the creative writing and editing a literary journal classes taught by Susn Suntree and Alexis Solis Milestone2013.indd 5 11/8/13 8:50 AM 6 EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE Las Mujeresn by Jasmin Acosta T HAS KILLED THE MEN. We all thought we were safe Ibut the worst happened. Our little pueblo was struck by a famine that killed all the livestock. It had no choice but to feast on us. No one thought this to be possible, after all, the myths and legends explained as much. But then again, no one had seen it this close before. You too might have heard of it. It’s known throughout the lands but it never attacked the people. It only attacked the goats and other livestock. Until now. The Chupacabra wasn’t attacking out of sport but for survival. Maybe if we would have been prepared the outcome would have been different. But who can prepare for such a thing? The men did their best, but without organization it was useless. We women are left. Widows with children. We’ll do anything to protect our hijos and hijas from the Chupacabra. I will never forget that frightening night. The night my husband was taken from me. We had just finished eating the little food we had left and were sitting around a small fire. My husband, Manuel, had just added a chimney to our aldea, a commodity in our pueblo. I was knitting on a rocking chair Manuel had made for me, while he was carving away at a piece of wood with his favorite rusty knife. Manuel was good with his hands; in fact, he had built not only our aldea but all the pieces of furniture that adorned it. He wasn’t a handsome man, but he was a hard worker and had always treated me with respect. While I sat there, I remember looking at him and thinking back to when he asked my padre for my hand in marriage. I had many suitors back then, all of whom were handsome and made more money than poor, average, Manuel. None had won my heart like him, though. The others would bring me flowers and expensive things. They would brag on and on about their horses, their guns, and the putasos they gave Jose at the local cantina. All that machismo gave me a headache. Manuel, on the other hand, had little money. He would carve beautiful wooden horses for me. When we were Milestone2013.indd 6 11/8/13 8:50 AM milestone: 2013 7 alone together, he would ask about my day and actually enjoyed just listening to me talk. While the others only cared for my looks, Manuel was the only one who wanted to get to know me. My father was a powerful man and wanted the best for me. When Manuel came to my father he stared at Manuel for a long while. I can only imagine what was going through his mind. My father finally spoke, “Many men have come asking for my daughter. They have offered me gold, stallions, and many beautiful things. What can you, a man who works with his hands to survive, offer me?” Manuel stood there, confused. He finally spoke, “I’m sorry, Don Juan, but I think you misunderstood me. I’m not here to offer you anything, sir. I am here because I love your daughter. I might not have much, but I will dedicate my life to making your daughter happy.” My father was never a sentimental fool. That was what women were for. He had grown up with men of privilege and knew their behavior well. He often regretted the way he treated my mother and didn’t want that for his daughter. Even though Manuel was considered to be below our station my father was impressed by him. He knew that his offer was something no other man could give me. Against our family’s wishes, he gave Manuel his blessing. What followed were the happiest years of my life. As I sat there reminiscing, I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. I might have left a life of privilege, but I found an even better one. A life filled with love. I then looked towards the fire where my little gift from heaven, Carlitos, sat with a poker in hand. He was mesmerized by the flames. Everything was eerily calm, when suddenly a loud bang was heard. All three of us sat there looking at each other. More shots were fired. By then, we were all standing up. Manuel headed towards the small window by the kitchen and looked out. It was too dark to see anything but the small flashes of gunfire. They seemed to be coming from the edge of the pueblo. “What is going on?” I asked, trying to hide the fear in my voice for Carlitos’s sake. Manuel finally turned towards me. His light brown eyes eased Milestone2013.indd 7 11/8/13 8:50 AM 8 EAST LOS ANGELES COLLEGE some of my fears. “I’m not sure.” Just then, the shooting stopped and a blood curling scream filled the night. We could now hear men running out into the night. Frantic shooting followed. Manuel grabbed the rifle hanging on the wall and turned towards me. “Take Carlitos and go down the crawl space under the bedroom. Don’t come out until I tell you to.” I nodded, not able to speak. He saw the fear in our eyes. He kissed Carlitos on the forehead and me on the lips. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be okay.” He had so much confidence and love in his eyes that I couldn’t help but believe him.