VCLC has New Offi ces at UNM-Valencia!

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1 Valencia County Literacy Council With Literacy and Justice for All! 280 La Entrada Los Lunas, NM (505) SERVING VALENCIA COUNTY FOR OVER 27 YEARS! VCLC has New Offi ces at UNM-Valencia! At VCLC, we were very excited to move into new offices this summer at UNM-Valencia Campus near Community Education and the Small Business Development Center. Park in the south parking lot to reach us. Our phone numbers and s have stayed the same, but we are now in offices SCC 213 and 214. Come by to see us sometime! New Tutor Training Want to help your friends and neighbors speak English or learn to read better? Come to our next New Tutor training: Orientation: Sept. 10, 1-4 p.m. Basic Literacy: Sept. 12, 8 am-5 pm English as a Second Language (ESL): Sept. 19, 8 am-5 pm Call for more info. Become our Friend on Facebook! Look for Valencia Literacy BOOK Readers Want to become a BOOK Reader? If you can give 1 hour per week, you can change a child s life forever. For more information, contact Irene Gogal, BOOK Coordinator ( or igogal@valencialiteracy.org) today. Summer 2014

2 Executive Director s Corner As many of you know, I started a PhD program in 2013, and I have so many people to thank this year! Thank you to the Board officers that recommended me; to the wonderful VCLC staff members Brenda Parra, Azucena Castillo, Sandra Arroyos, and Irene Gogal who keep things going at the office, in our local medical clinics, and in the escuelita in El Cerro Mission; and, of course, to our wonderful volunteers! I also want to thank our students who deeply inspire me. Helping people to learn another language or improve their reading and writing is a transformative experience. It is through knowing our students and how hard they work that I know I can complete the 6-7 years it will take to get a PhD. It s not the destination; it s the journey. Meanwhile, VCLC served 207 students with Volunteer Tutoring services last year and 150 in Family Literacy (with 19 also in tutoring). BOOK Readers read for 413 hours to 605 children, and we gave out 1,202 children s books to families that may have few or no books at home. Of course, one of the best things about Community Literacy is all that we learn from our students. Check out the recipe below, for example, from Georgina V. (And, as I learned, before a meal in Japan, Japanese people thank everyone along the way that made the food possible by saying, Itadaki-masu. ) Georgina s Unbelievably Good Chicken Mole Ingredients: 1-1 1/2 lbs of chicken, boiled and shredded 5-6 ancho chiles 1 tomato 3 cloves garlic 1/2 bar Abuelita s chocolate 1/2 cup almonds or almond butter 1/2 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) 1/2 cup peanuts or peanut butter 1/2 cup pecans 2 Tablespoons sesame seeds 3 bay leaves 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1 cinnamon stick chicken broth salt to taste 1/4 jar Molé Doña Maria from Guadalajara Boil the chiles until very soft and strain. Add tomato at the end. Toast all the nuts and seeds. Then, put everything into the blender (except the chicken) with the cut-up tomato and blend until smooth while adding chicken broth. Put sauce and chicken into the crock pot and stir in the chicken broth until the crock pot is full. Cook overnight on low heat. Serve over rice. If for any reason you need to eat low-acid foods like me (I can t eat the chile I grew up with!), try using roasted red bell peppers and a Roma tomato-- delicious!

3 Summer Field Trips The Escuelita went to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and the Sandia Mountains this year. Fun!

4 MEMORIES I have many memories about my house in Mexico, El Alamillo, little village. My memories have memories, too; it depends on the season. When I smell smoke fires, my imagination travels to a cold winter. My family were sitting around the wood stove, my mother was cooking flour tortillas and beans. If I see fresh corn, I imagine rainy summers when my family were harvesting corn. We ate the corn with butter and smelled the rainy ground on our porch. When I heard the singing birds, I remembered the spring with many flowers in my parents garden; the peach and apple trees blossomed, and every tree was turning green. My favorite season is when the golden leaves fell down from the trees, the green grass began to be covered with orange and golden leaves, and I was sitting on the outside table with my family --Aida Ivet Nevarez Student Writing Good Memories I like the sunrise, because I can see the sun when it rises behind the Manzano Mountains. This reminds me that it is a new day full of hope and new opportunities. But I like the sunset, too, because it reminds me of God s greatness. He becomes an artist by painting the mountains and clouds with pink and purple colors. I like to see the rain; It reminds me of when I was a little child. I used to see the water drops through the window. They looked like an army as they crashed on the unpaved road. Then when the rain stopped, my brothers and I went outside to play in the creeks that the water formed on the street. We made paper boats or can boats, and we enjoyed following them down the street. We didn t realize the hour that we came back home. We were happy playing and getting wet. I like the zinnia flowers; the remind me of my garden in Chihuahua. I like the smell of green chile when it s roasting. It reminds me of the nice flavor of my mom s chile rellenos. New Mexico music is very similar to Mexican music. When I see people dancing this music at the Belen Fair, I feel like I would be in Mexico dancing in those parties with my family and friends. These are good memories that I like to remember Because they make me happy. --Guadalupe Linares

5 How to Make Good Rice--by Reiko Sypteras Japanese cuisine is getting popular in the United States. So, American people are interested in Japanese foods because they are low calorie and contain lots of vegetables. The main ingredient is rice. The Japanese pay attention to making good rice, and we focus on every step more sensitively. First, I measure the rice. I pour the rice in the cup and level the rice with a chopstick. Some people shake the rice, but I do not. Shaking compacts the rice, resulting in more rice grains per measure. This throws off your water measurement. Secondly, I wash the rice with distilled water. The first water is really important for the rice because it absorbs the first water. gently wash the grains to not crack the shape. If you crack the rice, it will be mushy. Also, I do not use a utensil; instead I use my hand. After the first rinse, I use tap water until the water is clear. Third, I put the rice cooker on a flat place. When the rice cooker has extra water around the outside bowl, I wipe it off. Then, I adjust the distilled water to the graduation line in the bowl. As I normally use new crop rice, I adjust the water about 2mm lower than the line. I cover the lid until I can hear a click. I select white rice on the menu and I press the button. The menu also contains a setting for brown rice and sweet rice There many kinds of rice cookers from simple ones to multifunction ones. A few years ago, I saw a rice cooker made in Japan at Talin Market. It cost about $300. I asked my husband to buy it, but he refused. I tried to find it on Amazon.com, and I waited for tax season. Then, I asked him one more time. I told him I found the rice cooker on Amazon.com for $220. I emphasized the $80 saving. Finally, he relented. American simple rice cookers are around $70, but Japanese rice cookers can range up to $800. The Japanese like induction heater (IH) rice cookers because we think they produce more shiny rice and a milder flavor in the rice. Japanese people are more attached to rice because rice is a big part of our main diet. In addition, to making good rice, Japanese people take table manners seriously. Before eating meals and after having a meal, we say Itadaki-masu with hands folded as in prayer, bowing our heads a little bit. The original significance of this word was that we appreciate the food and the people who engaged in growing it, transporting it, and preparing it. More recently, many have adopted the word as a way to say dig in or let s eat. During the meal, we do not go anywhere and stay seated until everybody finishes eating. It is considered bad manners for anyone to go to the bathroom during the meal. For that matter, leaving the dinner table for any reason, other than an emergency, would be considered bad manners. Regarding the rice, my husband leaves some rice sticking to the inside of the bowl. Japanese people eat up all the grains until the bowl is completely empty inside. Eating every grain of rice has its origins in ancient Buddhist philosophy. Everything has a soul, even material objects. If something is sacrificed, in this case rice, for a higher purpose; you should not waste it. In this case, the rice has been sacrificed for our nutrition and it would be a waste of that sacrifice to not eat every grain. As long as I am talking about manners there are a few more important points that would be useful to know should you ever visit Japan. It is bad manners to the person preparing the meal and the sacrificed animal or seafood if you leave the food on the plate as well. If you do leave food, it must not be messy. In the past, my husband, who is American, would throw away extra food I wanted to save after dinner when he was loading the dish washer. He had no concept of saving small amounts of food. He seldom eats leftovers because he worries about food poisoning. Japanese people feel that this is a waste of food.

6 Artwork by Gerardo Contreras See us on the web at