Boom editor Jon Christensen interviews author Richard Rodriguez. Rodriguez has lived in California nearly all of his life. So what is it that now makes him say he once was but is no longer a California writer? There is something world-weary in the statement. Rodriguez has seen too much of the world in California, and perhaps too much of California in the world. At his writing table in his apartment in San Francisco, Rodriguez spoke with Boom about California’s soul, why he is no longer a California writer, what’s the matter with his hometown, San Francisco, these days, and love.

This excerpt offers a collection of the myth and truth—often indistinguishable—behind The Royal Chicano Air Force, an artist collective that played a key role in the Chicano civil rights movement. Playing with ideas about the preservation of history and its perceived truth, the archives – a series of original artist books - blend Pre-Columbian and Western record-keeping practices with running historical references to make real the ongoing mythologizing of the group, and to offer alternative readings of California history and public space.