Voices Of The Past: Questions For Poet Renato Rosaldo
As a kid in Tucson in the 1950s, anthropologist and poet Renato Rosaldo ran with a crew called the Chasers. 50 years later, he interviewed them at a reunion and created prose poems in their voices.
Most said we'd turn out badly. Our name signified wild guy, partier, fighter. We thrived on reputation. Whether they admired or hated us, everyone knew who we were, our jackets, our spot in the stairwell.
A Chicano teenager in 1950s Tucson had two options: "You could do okay or become a juvenile delinquent," writes anthropologist and poet Renato Rosaldo in his new book of poetry, The Chasers. But Rosaldo and his crew chose a third path. They became the Chasers.
"Their jackets made them visible at Tucson High, 1956–1959," Rosaldo writes of the guys he used to run with. Those jackets, emblazoned with a champagne-filled martini glass, a big crimson CHASERS
