First and foremost, I would like to give a genuine thank you to Tony Diaz for the vote of confidence and Erin Wilcox and the rest of the crew at Drunken Boat for allowing the Librotraficante Movement to take hold of a few clicks and webpages in this issue. With that said, I’ll use my keystrokes to give you a heads up on what a “Librotraficante” is and where the movement stands today.

It is March 17, 2012. I’m in the auditorium at the Cesar E. Chavez Building, University of Arizona, destination of the Librotraficante caravan, which has traveled by bus from Houston giving out contraband literature, holding press conferences, setting up underground libraries and forums with new school board candidates to replace those who have sold out Latino literature. The book smugglers have arrived in Tucson, where one of the country’s strongest Mexican American Studies programs was recently dismantled. They’ve brought the eyes of the nation with them.