The Center for Literary Arts is pleased to present authors Jaime Cortez and Dino Enrique Piacentini in a reading and conversation from their literary debuts. This event takes place on Thursday, November 7, 2024 at Hammer Theatre at 6:30 PM.

Gordo by Jaime Cortez is a semi-autobiographical collection of stories set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. Stories center around the title character, a young, probably gay, boy who puts on a wrestler’s mask and throws fists with another boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father’s drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of undocumented migrants. These scenes from Steinbeck Country, seen so intimately from within, are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters – who belongs to America and how are they treated? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California farm worker camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.

Invasion of the Daffodils by Dino Enrique Piacentini is a novel set the Korean War, on a small island off the coast of California. We are introduced to eleven-year-old Chico Flores as he scavenges a mysterious crate of daffodil bulbs that have washed ashore at Sucker’s Cove. Chico is delighted, knowing that he can sell the bulbs and make much-needed money to support his family. But these bulbs are different, alien even. They seem to click and hiss and have minds of their own, and when planted, they send up their shoots unnaturally fast, swamping gardens, cracking through pavement, splitting the foundations of buildings. Very soon, the Island is facing a full-scale invasion, and as Chico and his family find themselves in the crosshairs of an irate community, the Islanders' long-standing rifts around race, class, and sexuality explode into the open. A lyrical novel about family, “invasion,” and heroism, Invasion of the Daffodils rifles through the tumult of love and the rubble of loss to examine the problems, possibilities, and inevitability of unexpected change.

This event is made possible thanks to the support of the Martha Heasley Cox Lecture and the College of Humanities and the Arts' Artist Excellence Programming Grant.