"Will you tell me the ways you’ve been keeping beautiful to stay alive?"

Correspondence between Orlando and Leòn

Authors

  • Orlando Ochoa, Jr. New York University
  • León Ozuna University of Texas at Austin

Keywords:

life, friendship, beauty, letters, distance, kisses, South Texas

Abstract

Orlando Ochoa and León Ozuna write to each other and reflect on the details of their friendship, love, loneliness, and sex across distance. This epistolary/poetic exchange is an answer to the question of how Ochoa and Ozuna—Mexican poets and lovers from the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas—keep alive in the world.

A collage of photos and materials provided by issue authors. These include: a photo of a landscape with stars shining above a curved snowy road disappearing into a wooded horizon along the coast of Gichigami/Lake Superior; a cutout of cursive text written by Caitilin McMillan’s mother that reads “to the world's best heart”; a photo of Neelofer Qadir’s hand holding colorful postcards in front of the blue water of Gris Gris, Mauritius; a handwritten letter in Spanish dated August 1983 from Alana de Hinojosa’s grandmother to her mother, Evelina “Bebe”, asking for her to come back home to Calexico, California; a black-and-white troll block print and a Valentine's Day card with porcupine quills piercing a red-and-black heart and the handwritten message “Happy Valentines Day! Contains two genuine porcupine quills, picked clean by ravens. Love, Elspeth”; a black-and-white photograph of Dr. Donald Deskins Jr. in a three-point stance wearing a football uniform; a colourful poster with doves and peace flowers and text that reads “Viva! Viva! Palestina!”; an orange envelope reading “don't you dare write back!” with a hand-drawn scowling figure; a screenshot of a Zoom grid of smiling attendees at the American Association of Geographers 2021 Desirable Futures sessions; and background text and images from valentines written by Elspeth Iralu.

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Published

2024-04-15

How to Cite

Ochoa, O., & Ozuna, L. (2024). "Will you tell me the ways you’ve been keeping beautiful to stay alive?": Correspondence between Orlando and Leòn . ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 23(2), 111–113. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/2440

Issue

Vol. 23 No. 2 (2024): Desirable Futures

Section

Special Issue: Desirable Futures

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Orlando Ochoa, Jr., León Ozuna

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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