ThoughtGallery.org > Noé Álvarez at PageTurners Reading Series

Noé Álvarez at PageTurners Reading Series

SPIRIT RUN: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land
by Noe Alvarez

The electrifying debut memoir of a son of working-class Mexican immigrants who fled a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala, challenging himself to reimagine North America and his place in it…

Growing up in Yakima, Washington Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” Escape came in the form of a university scholarship, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.

At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across a North America older than its present political borders. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings.

Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear—dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion—but also of asserting Indigenous and working-class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.

Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and—against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit—the dream of a liberated future.

NOE ALVAREZ was born to Mexican immigrant parents and raised working-class in Yakima, Washington. He holds degrees in philosophy and creative writing from Whitman College and Emerson College, respectively. He studied conflict analysis, peacemaking, and conflict resolution at American University and in Northern Ireland, received a fellowship at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and researched U.S. drug policy, military aid, and human rights issues in Colombia’s Putumayo jungles. He lives in Boston, where, until recently, he worked as a security officer at the Boston Athenæum.

The presentation will be in Brooklyn on the Dekalb Stage at DeKalb Market Hall, the largest food hall in New York City.

Easy access via the B, D, Q, 2, 3, A, or C trains.

445 ALBEE SQUARE WEST, BROOKLYN, NY 11201

Free!

(Come for the authors, but, check out the cornucopia of amazing food options at The Market Hall.)











When: Mon., Mar. 9, 2020 at 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

SPIRIT RUN: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land
by Noe Alvarez

The electrifying debut memoir of a son of working-class Mexican immigrants who fled a life of labor in fruit-packing plants to run in a Native American marathon from Canada to Guatemala, challenging himself to reimagine North America and his place in it…

Growing up in Yakima, Washington Noé Álvarez worked at an apple-packing plant alongside his mother, who “slouched over a conveyor belt of fruit, shoulder to shoulder with mothers conditioned to believe this was all they could do with their lives.” Escape came in the form of a university scholarship, but as a first-generation Latino college-goer, Álvarez struggled to fit in.

At 19, he learned about a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, epic marathons meant to renew cultural connections across a North America older than its present political borders. He dropped out of school and joined a group of Dené, Secwépemc, Gitxsan, Dakelh, Apache, Tohono O’odham, Seri, Purépecha, and Maya runners, all fleeing difficult beginnings.

Telling their stories alongside his own, Álvarez writes about a four-month-long journey that pushed him to his limits. He writes not only of overcoming hunger, thirst, and fear—dangers included stone-throwing motorists and a mountain lion—but also of asserting Indigenous and working-class humanity in a capitalist society where oil extraction, deforestation, and substance abuse wreck communities.

Running through mountains, deserts, and cities, and through the Mexican territory his parents left behind, Álvarez forges a new relationship with the land, and with the act of running, carrying with him the knowledge of his parents’ migration, and—against all odds in a society that exploits his body and rejects his spirit—the dream of a liberated future.

NOE ALVAREZ was born to Mexican immigrant parents and raised working-class in Yakima, Washington. He holds degrees in philosophy and creative writing from Whitman College and Emerson College, respectively. He studied conflict analysis, peacemaking, and conflict resolution at American University and in Northern Ireland, received a fellowship at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and researched U.S. drug policy, military aid, and human rights issues in Colombia’s Putumayo jungles. He lives in Boston, where, until recently, he worked as a security officer at the Boston Athenæum.

The presentation will be in Brooklyn on the Dekalb Stage at DeKalb Market Hall, the largest food hall in New York City.

Easy access via the B, D, Q, 2, 3, A, or C trains.

445 ALBEE SQUARE WEST, BROOKLYN, NY 11201

Free!

(Come for the authors, but, check out the cornucopia of amazing food options at The Market Hall.)

Buy tickets/get more info now