Crossing Borders: Welcome to Cinco Puntos Press

This is the "Crossing Borders" workshop from the Santa Fe Community College Department of Humanities. The photograph is taken in the foyer of our storefront at 701 Texas Avenue. From left to right are: tour-guide-for-the-day Nancy Gepfert (rights activist with the Women's Intercultural Center in Anthony, NM), workshop leader Margo Chavez Charles, Lois Snyderman, Gretchen Goff, Tina Matthews, workshop leader Sharon Franco, CPP co-publisher Lee Byrd and Dee Homans. The guy hiding in the back left is Bobby Byrd.

The "Crossing Borders" folks visited us in March for a conversation about border issues, publishing on the border and books and ideas. Taught by Margo Chavez and Sharon Franco (both experts in Spanish language literature), the class features readings, guest speakers, discussion, research about border issues and a trip to the border. (Margo teaches a similar class at UNM in Albuquerque in the Honors College.) The attendees visited with a number of fronterizos during their visit, talking and sharing and learning about the political, cultural and personal issues along the U.S./Mexico Border. Cinco Puntos is delighted that they used two of our books as texts for the class--Ringside Seat to the Revolution by David Dorado Romo and the Puro Border non-fiction anthology edited by Luis Humberto Crostwaite, John Byrd and Bobby Byrd.

We at Cinco Puntos are delighted to host such events. We make lots of coffee, heat up water for tea, bring in Gussie's Cookies and we settle in for a good conversation. Intellectually stimulating and fun for us, it's one of our ways to promote Cinco Puntos and our titles and our place in the world. We always hope of course our visitors will remember us when they go back home.