Forty Poems for City Living: Pilsen-18th Street - Paperback

A peek at history through the eyes of a young Chicano struggling to find his place in community where ICE raids are common and young men are forced to go to war in a far-off land. The updated poems are memorials to lost friends who shared the same neighborhood experiences and messages to those who are still there to stay and be a part of the change. Virginia Martinez, Author of the "Adventures with Abuela" series of children's stories.

Evokes a time, place, and life that refuses to be gentrified. Like a tree whose intricate roots run deep, powerful neighborhood images disrupt ongoing attempts to displace a vibrant past and resistant present with the objective of developers, the transformation of an immigrant community into an ethnic Disneyland. Leonard Ramírez, Author of The Chicanas of Eighteenth Street.

Constructs and deconstructs the sights and sounds of the now gentrified Pilsen neighborhood where he came of age. His poems present a new vision about the life of new immigrants who have to navigate through countless difficulties in order to survive. The poems shine with precision and insightful imagery. --. Antonio Zavala. Author of Our Barrios Our Lives and Pale Yellow Moon.

JOEL MÉNDEZ, product of the Chicago Public Schools, and a veteran of Chicago's Mexican Pilsen neighborhood, worked as a CPS math teacher and) and as a researcher and academic counselor at the University of Illinois in Chicago (UIC) Medical Center Campus. A photographer and visual artist, he herein offers us his first book.