Voices from the Barrio

This book tells the story of a groundbreaking event in Chicano history. Here, for the first time, is the complete story of East Los Angeles' "Con Safos: Reflections of Life in the Barrio," the first indepentent Chicano literary magazine. Created by a legendary group of audacious and furiously independent barrio intellectuals and artists, connected to no established group and working on their own dime, 10 magazine issues were produced in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many writers and artists who would later become well-known were first published in "Con Safos." Bilingual, using Cal and barrio slang, "Con Safos" helped bring to attention an important inner vision, of Mexican American family life, "El Movimiento" --the Chicano civil rights protest movement--and "El Moratorium" the Chicano movement against the Vietnam War. It used humor to tilt at establishment windmills. It made fun of everything--even itself, as it took on the most serious questions of the day including racism and discrimination. There were those that hated it and those that loved it, but everybody read it. As it became the "Voice of the Barrio" it helped create a Chicano aesthetic that enhanced the development of Chicano identity. In a last chapter of the book, "Con Safos" "vatos" tell what they are doing now. Their contemporary lives reflect and illuminate the persistence of creativity through the life span.