Calexico in Literature

Blue Demon · Posted: 22 Dec 2005 07:44 AM Post subject: Calexico in Literature

Posted some place else on this board (under television and film) is a list of movies where Calexico (disguised or not) makes a guest appearance.
Is there such a list for Calexico in print? Mexicali pops up a lot, especially in crime/detective fiction. Some of the beat poets wrote about Mexicali too.
In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou gets about 50 miles from Calexico, but it's never clear if she actually makes it all the way there.
In Generation X by Douglas Coupland, at the end of the novel, the main character is running away from his life and goes through Calexico on his way to Mexico.
Any others?

chuco boy · Posted: 22 Dec 2005 06:43 PM Post subject: Calexico MOVies

They filmed "LOSING IT" in downtown Calexico with Tom Cruise and Shelley Long.

Asesino Koolarrow · Posted: 31 Dec 2005 12:21 PM Post subject: Re: Calexico MOVies

hellsieduster · Posted: 03 Jan 2006 06:32 PM Post subject:

in the book dharma bums by kerouac he talks about walking through downtown calexico during christmas time and then peeing in the dirt in mexicali.

Blue Demon · Posted: 09 Jan 2006 05:10 PM Post subject: one more, from a Calexico native

Here's another. The author is a Calexico native, and his name is Hector Calderon (he probably still has relatives in town), and the book is called Narratives of Greater Mexico and it's a critical study of Chicano literature. This guy is also a professor at UCLA. The interesting thing is that more than just analyze literature, Calderon has some autobiographical parts to his study. Like this:

"I was a Mexican before I became a Chicano. Mexican—culture, language, religion—was the way I viewed myself growing up on the Alta and Baja California border in Calexico-Mexicali. Mexican is the way that Anglo-American society of that time (and still today) viewed me. The Chicano Movement gave historical credence and cultural dignity to my basic Mexicanness—Spanish-speaking, working-class, and mestizo. I am not alone in reasserting cultural ties with Mexican culture."

All throughout the book he comes back to Calexico, to his experience along the border. If you pick it up and want to skip the literary analysis, read the last chapter, which is where he pays homage to his Calexico upbringing.