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N A LETTER WRITTEN to Ana Castillo on 1 January 1979, Nicolás Kanellos ,theneditoroftheRevistaChicano-Riqueña,providedcriticalfeedbackon her manuscript of erotic poetry and prose pieces that would be published later that year as The Invitation.1 “The book looks very good,” he wrote. “I am very pleased with what you have done and I think that I can write a fitting preface if you still want me to do so.”2 After offering substantive feedback on each of the ten pieces in the collection, Kanellos closed his letter by asking, “[W]ould you be interested in us publishing this through our new publishing house, Arte Público Press?”3 As it turns out, although Castillo apparently did heed some of Kanellos’s editorial suggestions on her writing, she declined not only his publishing offer but the use of a preface he drafted for The Invitation in October 1979. In fact, Kanellos’s preface may very well have been the reason why Castillo chose to publish the book on her own (as a low-budget chapbook), even though Arte Público’s resources would have spared her the labor and time of fund-raising and would have ensured a larger first run than the two hundred copies she managed to produce.4 Kanellos’s unpublished one-page preface (now housed, along with the related correspondence, in the Ana Castillo Papers in the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives [CEMA] at the University of California at Santa Barbara) apparently met with the author’s disapproval. Kanellos’s attempt to write a preface “fitting” for the manuscript ultimately resulted in a preface rife with sexual innuendo: There was a lot more to the Conquest of Mexico, as I was learning, than extracting Indian recipes. It was a story of love and betrayal , like all those paperback romances sold in grocery stores promise. A story of two great men, one lived and one died. And one very great although misunderstood woman. High drama. I couldn’t take it. I’d pick up my fat library edition at bedtime, read a few pages, cry myself to sleep, then pick it up again the next night. My copy was overdue. —ANA CASTILLO (Peel My Love Like an Onion, spoken by Carmen la Coja) Queering the Conquest with Ana Castillo 60 READING CHICAN@ LIKE A QUEER October 6, 1979 The Invitation By: Ana Castillo Introduction by Nicolás Kanellos, Editor, Revista Chicano-Riqueña Dear Reader, The Invitation takes pleasure in requesting your presence at an affair, black tie is not required. Let’s make no bones about it. The book is a bold attempt to seduce you, to consumate [sic] a carnal union, to abnegate your self, blending your soul, eyes and ears into the rhythmic sinews of Ana Castillo’s poesis. In honor of this event, Castillo has lowered the bridge, drained the moats, and tended banners from her turrets. The layers of medieval innocence have crumbled. The once-barred windows have been breached. The walls of the inner sanctum sensuously embrace a new-found heat which illuminates us, as it teases and titillates our every nerve-ending. No R.S.V.P. is necessary. You are only requested to let down your guard. Ana Castillo’s second book will not harm you. Please leave your inhibitions under your pillow, her tongue will caress you [sic] ears. Her words, dry and direct, will urge you to come, come . . . become a guest of this creative process. Respectfully yours, Nicolás Kanellos, Editor Revista Chicano-Riqueña5 Foregoing a somber academic introduction, Kanellos instead chooses to play off of the book’s title and mirror the eroticism of its contents by composing the preface in the form of an invitation to a sexual event described through figurative metaphors for sexual repression and female seduction: archaic images of man-made prohibitive structures used to keep enemies at bay (moats, bars, and turrets) contrast with inviting, Rapunzel-like bridges and banners. As clever as these figurative devices may have been, however, Castillo was clearly less than impressed. Although the Ana Castillo Papers includes only the correspondence written by Kanellos (and not, unfortunately, copies of Castillo’s replies), and I do not want to go too far in attempting to guess what her position was, a second letter (dated 31 October 1979) from Kanellos to Castillo suggests that she took offense at the sexual innuendo and overall playfulness of the preface: [18.188.252.23] Project MUSE (2024-04-26...

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