Chicano Writers Research Articles

From New York to the World: An Interview With Tato Laviera

Tato Laviera is a prolific poet. In a relatively short period he has published four books and is finishing a fifth, and this accomplishment makes him one of the more active writers of his generation. Tato first revealed his poetic talents with La Carreta Made a U-Turn, a rewriting of sorts of Rene' Marques's well-known play La Carreta. His poem Jesu's Papote, from Enclave, confirmed his talents. The poem has already found a place among the celebrated works of Nuyorican writers and is perhaps among the best poems by a Latin American author. Jesu's Papote is written in the tradition of the long poem, and it captures with precision, depth, and emotion the life and struggles of a people who have been down but not out. Jesu's Papote is the voice of many Puerto Ricans who have been excluded from realizing the American Dream. Readers familiar with Tato's poetry recognize that his poems are broad-reaching and respond to a diverse audience as represented by Nuyoricans, Chicanos, Caribbeans, Latin Americans, and Afro-Americans. His poetry is full of the music of bomba and plena, and of rap and preaching. However, it is also socially minded and historical in content. Indeed, his poems are a conglomeration of voices, songs, dialects and cultures producing a unique synthesis which is moving, instructive, and aesthetically appealing. Tato's books and poems are rich in symbolism and multiple in meaning, in the traditional poetic sense, but also in regards to their use of Spanish, English, and Spanglish words which allude to different linguistic referents. If Enclave refers to a certain musicality, as in the Spanish instrument la dlave, and, at the same time, to a particular surrounding, as in the English enclave, it also addresses a personalized and hidden language code, as in the Spanish en dlave to which a privileged few have access. Tato's latest works attempt to broaden his readership and will demand a comparison between his works and those of other Latin American writers. Equally important, Nuyorican writing, in general, and Tato's work, in particular, can be read within the framework of the literature of the post-boom period insofar as it takes advantage of the literary space created by the boom writers such as Fuentes, Garcfa Mdrquez, Cabrera Infante, Corta'zar, and Vargas Llosa, who have brought Latin American writing to the attention of the world. But the space that was created by these and other writers has allowed for the development and publication of a marginal and lesser known yet nevertheless important type of literature which includes women and Blacks and also Nuyorican and Chicano writers. In addition, the literature of the latter two, which is written in the United States, embraces ome of the characteristics of the literature of transmigration and exile. There is tension between the country of origin and the adopted one which the writer accepts on an intellectual evel but not an emotional one. Within a different context, the writing is also undeniably North American as it recalls the works written by Afro-American authors in exposing the lives of those who have become a part of the expansion of North American literature and culture.

Culture & truth: the remaking of social analysis

Culture and Truth argues for a new approach to thinking and writing about culture. Exposing the inadequacies of old conceptions of static, monolithic cultures, and of detached, objective observers, Renato Rosaldo argues that new ethnographic writing must come to terms with the dynamic nature of social reality - with history, spontaneity, and human emotions. To move forward, anthropologists and other observers of culture must describe human lives in their rich variety, as ever-changing, mysterious and unpredictable rather than rigid and fixed. In remaking social analysis, their work must therefore acknowledge and celebrate diversity, narrative, emotion, and the unavoidability of subjectivity. Rosaldo's vision of social analysis concentrates on borders - the lines along which different groups work and live with divergent understandings. Drawing upon his own background as a Chicano as well as upon the works of three Chicano writers, Rosaldo claims that cultures by their very nature are heterogenous and always working in the realm of borders.

John Steinbeck: A Study of the Short Fiction by R. S. Hughes

168 Western American Literature As a historical and descriptive survey ofthe major literary works produced by writers of Mexican descent in the United States, Understanding Chicano Literature has considerable merit. It can be used as a supplementary text for courses in Chicano literature, and it isuseful not only for the Anglo reader but for mejicano students as well. The bibliography and the list of suggested read­ ings should be quite helpful to any beginning student in Chicano literature. The authors’ comments as to the history of the word chicano are merci­ fully brief. Too much has been written about the subject by writers with too little knowledge either of Mexican cultural history or of the history of Mexican Spanish. On the other hand, the role of the Chicano Movement and of pioneer publishers of Chicano literature such as Octavio Romano in California and Nicolas Kanellos in Texas deserves a fuller treatment. From the 1840s to the 1960s, Mexicans in the United States did a good deal of writing, both good and bad. Their efforts were stifled, however, by geographical and social isola­ tion and by the lack of publishing outlets willing to consider writing about Mexicans that did not fit the prejudiced stereotypes of their editors. The Chicano Movement revitalized literary creativity among Mexicans in the United States. Chicano presses encouraged such creative work by provid­ ing a broader readership for Chicano writers, and—indirectly—they brought them to the attention of establishment presses. Hence the existence of books like Understanding Chicano Literature. AMERICO PAREDES University of Texas, Austin John Steinbeck: A Study of the Short Fiction. By R. S. Hughes. (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1989. 218 pages, $18.95.) This useful volume is also an unusual publishing event: the appearance of the second study of John Steinbeck’s short fiction by the same author— University of Hawaii Professor R. S. Hughes—in little over a year. Indeed, while the sequel represents a thorough rewriting of the original (only a chapter on the substantially uncollected work of the 1940s and 1950s is reprinted), the reader cannot expect to encounter markedly different assessments in the newer texts—nor are there any. Hughes ispersuasive in arguing for more atten­ tion to Steinbeck’s mastery of the short-story form than is generally accorded it in the sometimes routine coverage included in critical surveys of the author’s career output. This time around, moreover, Hughes responds to the expected demands of the volume’s intended audience by devoting primary attention to the published and collected pieces, which after all are those the vast majority of students and professors are interested in. The book is also outfitted with a quite thorough bibliography. Reviews 169 As with his novels, Steinbeck’sshort fictions generally make use of western locales; indeed, the landscape of the Californian West can be said to be the organizing principle behind such collections as The Long Valley—particularly The Red Pony, frequently encountered separately—and the sequence-in-novelform The Pastures of Heaven. Hughes’s knowledge of this literal turf is matched by his solid grounding in prior criticism; and while he contributes the results of his study of primary texts and manuscripts to the critical hopper, his judgments of the merits and meanings of individual works do not constitute radical departures from the assessments of most readers. One can readily imagine the delight of the undergraduate finding his or her way to this volume in the primary stages of research. This is a series title, of course, and Twayne’s format demands the inclu­ sion of previously printed materials, in this case a letter from Steinbeck to his former teacher Edith Mirrielees on the mysteries of the cult of story writing, along with a sampling of Steinbeck’s statements on the craft of fiction assem­ bled by Tetsumaro Hayashi. Unfortunately, there has been room for only four critical pieces—by Marilyn H. Mitchell,Charles E. May, M.R. Satyanarayana, and Arnold L. Goldsmith—but these are good ones and adumbrate the range of possible approaches to Steinbeck’s art. Readers with a taste for the best of the West in short stories will be happy to have this book. JOHN DITSKY University...

European Perspectives on Hispanic Literature of the United States ed. by Genevieve Fabre, and: Chicana Creativity and Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Literature ed. by María Herrera-Sobek and Helena María Viramontes

270 Western American Literature I found the book enjoyable in its recounting of some of Hemingway’s early life and later exploits but the constant lecturing on psychoanalysis was intrusive. The book was uneven in chapter length (2.5 pages to 11), and in continuity. One chapter would describe several episodes, the next would discuss psychoanalysis. In my opinion, the treatment was too brief, not integrated and less than original. The recent Hemingway biography by Kenneth Lynn is a similar fictional account. Hemingway had little use for psychiatrists and psy­ chologists and I don’t believe this book would have changed his opinion. CARL D. CHENEY Utah State University European Perspectives on Hispanic Literature of the United States. Edited by Genevieve Fabre. (Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1988. 160 pages, $8.50.) Chicana Creativity and Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Litera­ ture. Edited by Maria Herrera-Sobek and Helena Maria Viramontes. (Hous­ ton: Arte Publico Press, 1988. 190 pages, $10.00.) Both collections contain material from conferences on Hispanic cultures and literature, one held in Paris in 1986, the other in Irvine in 1987. The title, European Perspectives on Hispanic Literature of the United States, is, in fact, misleading since the Paris conference united European and American scholars in order to “celebrate and discuss the esthetics, history and contributions of literature produced by Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and other Hispanics of the United States.” There are also inconsisten­ cies between what is announced in the introduction and on the back cover and what the book actually covers. For example, the cover mentions a study of Sandra Cisneros; this, however, is not included. Nevertheless, the collection affords a unique opportunity to compare and contrast European and American approaches to Hispanic literature, and the eleven critical essays are of consistently high quality. They use a broad range of methodological approaches but are unified in their concern for the identifica­ tion of the socio-historical experience and the cultural situation of Hispanics as expressed in literature. While a few essays examine Nuyorican poetry, those on Mexican American literature occupy the central position and are of special interest to western American studies. It is interesting to compare and contrast French and American perspec­ tives on major Chicano writers. For example, in discussing Rudolfo Anaya’s Heart of Aztlan, French critic Jean Cazemajou applies Roland Barthes’ eurocentric theory of “l’ecriture,” whereas Alurista explores the indigenous myth of Aztlan in the novel. Two articles focus exclusively on Chicana writing. Gloria Velasquez-Trevino examines early Chicana writers and argues against the Reviews 271 common belief that they were “assimilationist, tame and imitative, romantic and pastoral.” And French feminist critic Marcienne Rocard discusses recent Chicana poetry to prove her contention that the Chicana is not twice but four times a minority. Entirely devoted to recent Chicana writing is the anthology Chicana Creativity and Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Literature. The editors compiled this collection of poetry, prose, and critical essays in order to “celebrate” the conference on Mexican American Women’s Literature held in Irvine, California, in the spring of 1987. The book is an ambitious venture. The editors claim to have included works that are innovative in form and content. In their words the collected works are “daring inroads into ‘new frontiers’ which the authors make in their writings. The poets, short story writers and critics are all taking risks, they are expanding the boundaries of Chicana literature and literary criticism, offering new vistas and new possi­ bilities.” The poetry section, consisting of poems by Lorna Dee Cervantes, Lucha Corpi, Evangelina Vigil-Pinon, and Denise Chavez, is daring in its exploration of often repressed topics such as Chicana sexuality and eroticism. The prose fiction section bears witness to the innovativeness of Chicana writing. Denise Chavez blurs traditional genres by combining “theatre, sculp­ ture, folk belief and folk art” in her Novena Narrativas y Ofrendas Nuevomexicanas . Roberta Fernandez’ short story “Andrea” is an effective combination of a narrative and a history of Mexican American theatre. And in her short story “Miss Clairol” Helena Maria Viramontes deals with a factory worker, by now representative of a large segment of the Chicana population. The five critical essays...

Review Essay: Recent Chicano Writing

Review Essay: Recent Chicano Writing Raymund A. Paredes University of California Los Angeles Chicano (or Mexican American — I use the terms interchangeably) writing has grown remarkably since 1965 when Luis Valdez yoked his considerable playwrighting talents to the cause of César Chavez's farmworkers' union and launched a literary movement . The publication of a novel or a collection of short stories or poems is no longer a rare event; indeed, two publishing houses, Arte Público Press of Houston and the Bilingual Press of Tempe, Arizona, seem to be flourishing by specializing in just such works. Some Chicano writers, Gary Soto for example, have acquired national reputations while others, most notably Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, have won prestigious literary awards in Latin America. This surge in creative activity has been accompanied by a rise in literary criticism. In the past year, two ambitious studies have appeared: Marta Sanchez's Contemporary Chicana Poetry (Berkeley: U of California P, 1985) and Cordelia Candelaria's Chicano Poetry (Westport, Ct.: Greenwood, 1986). One of the most gratifying developments in Chicano writing recently has been the expansion of its ideological perspectives. Always innovative in its structural and linguistic features, Chicano writing, especially in the first decade of its emergence, often verged close to predictability in its presentation of the social, cultural, and economic circumstances of Chicano life. This quality was not surprising, given that Chicano writing initially evolved in a highly charged political context and that authors felt obligated to promote a program of social reform and cultural preservation. That Chicano writers as a group no longer felt bound to a particular political and ideological agenda became clear in 1981 when Richard Rodriguez assailed bilingual education and affirmative action programs in his autobiographical Hunger ofMemory, much to the astonishment of numerous Anglo reviewers who lavished praise on the book in journals ranging from the New York Times Book Review to People magazine. The continued diversity of current Chicano writing, ideological and otherwise, is evident in works that have recently appeared. Of all the works under review here, Lionel Garcia's Leaving Home is the most predictable and the least satisfying. The novel traces the experiences of several Mexican Americans who live in California just before and during World War II. Like José Antonio Villarreal and Rudolfo Anaya before him, Garcia focuses on this period as a watershed for Mexican Americans, a time when their patriotic feelings turned irrevocably away from Mexico and they found themselves involved in the central events of American Ufe. Leaving Home is that most typical of American ethnic works: the generational novel of conflict, acculturation, and, inevitably so it seems, assimilation . Garcia is an ambitious writer; he has in mind nothing less than a Mexican American epic, a chronicle of ethnogenesis (to use Werner Sollors' term) that delineates the development of Mexican American culture and character. Unfortunately, Garcia's achievement falls short of his ambition. First, the novel is ineptly written, occasionally to the point of unintended humor. No editor seems to have glanced at the manuscript. Garcia writes that sweaters are "hanged" on 124 Book Reviews125 clotheslines and that a character "had drank too much." A female character has skin that "was smooth, though wrinkled and very pale" while a male character, we are told, is "mostly in a bad mood all the time." In addition to his grammatical and logical errors, Garcia develops his plot clumsily. Characters come and go and reappear improbably. And both major characters are flat and hardly more than conveyances for Garcia's careless observations about Mexican American experience. Garcia seems to have learned much of what he believes about Mexican Americans from John Steinbeck. Many of Garcia's characters resemble thepaisanos of Tortilla Flat, stupendously ignorant and complacent, unconcerned about pulUng themselves out of their cultural muck. Garcia connects their behavior to the long history of bigotry against Mexican Americans in California but much too weakly to mitigate the novel's portrayal of Mexican American culture as inherently and severely pathological. The uninformed reader might conclude from Garcia's work that Chícanos deserve every act of malfeasance directed at them by Anglo society and that assimilation is the only remedy for the scourge...

Crow Man’s People: Three Seasons with the Navajo by Nigel Pride

Reviews 269 “sacred stories” so that they may be preserved. The narrator notes, pointedly, that the link between the grandmother and the listener is strengthened by their mutual “outsider” status, for the narrator/listener is the daughter of the trader at the “two-hundred-year-old store,” the Mercantile. Beyond the frame we have little context for the stories—save for the back cover’sclaim that “the majority of the stories were told to her in Tewa ... at the San Juan Pueblo.” (Uncle Tito, a flat character in the frame, serves to assert implications of accuracy and authenticity in the translations.) As reconstituted fiction, the Storyteller’s “performance” works well enough. But as for inferences that these are “secret stories” and may contribute another set of variants to our knowledge of Pueblo myth, I have serious reser­ vations. Certainly images of Yellow Corn Woman and Grandmother Spider as well as other figures are to be found along with “Father Sky” and “Mother Earth,” but there is no attempt to provide even slight ethnographic notes, despite the author’s presumed familiarity. The Montezuma/Melinche myth, for example, is not solely of Pueblo origin as it appears here. Such omissions sever the stories from the culture which created them and undercut the stories’ power to sustain the culture (for non-Pueblo readers at least).Should teachers wish to use this collection—and they might do so with purpose, for it raises many issues problematic in studying oral narratives-—they should prepare themselves with other texts such as Marc Simmons’s Witchcraft in the South­ west and Alfonso Ortiz’s The Tewa World. MICHAEL LOUDON Eastern Illinois University Crow Man’s People: Three Seasons with the Navajo. By Nigel Pride. (New York: Universe, 1985. 222 pages, $15.00.) This book is not a product of anthropological or ethnographic fieldwork, nor of historical research. Crow Man’s People is an unpretentious, nonacademic personal adventure story by an Englishman, who had written a similar, earlier book on a Mayan Indian community in Mexico. Nigel Pride, a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at a British art school, is a skillful writer in an easy journalistic style, and a sensitive observer of his surroundings. The day-to-day life of the Navajo people comes alive, including healing and other ceremonies, through the daily activities of one family with whom the author lived for several months, through parts of three seasons. He organizes his book around his three visits during one year. The overall problems of the reservation—unemployment, poverty, poor infrastructure, the conflict over the Hopi-Navajo joint use area—come up in the book only through conversations with the author’s hosts, but are not ade­ quately explained. One discussion of Navajo alcoholism comes very close to being racialist in tone. The omission of the profound problems and issues of 270 Western American Literature the Navajo reservation leads to a glossing over of the difficulties of Navajo life and a romantic view of the people, whom the author clearly deeply admires and loves. Crow Man’sPeople isenjoyable and even informative reading. However, given the fine and extensive body of literature—ethnographic and historical— on the Navajo, the book is not an important addition, and would not be a useful tool of instruction or research at any level. ROXANNE DUNBAR ORTIZ California State University, Hayward Cuentos Chícanos: A Short Story Anthology. Edited by Rudolfo Anaya and Antonio Márquez. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. 186 pages, $9.95.) The present volume is a substantially revised edition of a collection of short stories issued in 1980. Of the 21 stories in the new anthology, only seven appeared in the first edition. Some well-known Chicano writers are repre­ sented here: Rudolfo Anaya himself, Ron Arias, Albert Rios, Mario Suarez and Bruce-Novoa, also well-known as a literary scholar and critic. This col­ lection demonstrates how varied Chicano literature has become in the past several years. The stories here are in Spanish as well as English;some display a powerful ethnic consciousness, while others disregard ethnic issues altogether. Some selections deal with Chícanos at the bottom of the economic ladder in barrios and migrant...

THE IMAGE OF GAYS IN CHICANO PROSE FICTION

One of the world's best-kept secrets, until recently, was that a sizable proportion of men and women find their most significant relationships, both emotionally and physically, with members of their own sex. For example, the 1971 edition of Brief Lives fails to inform its readers that homosexual relationships were meaningful in the lives of Tchaikovsky, Thoreau, Garcia Lorca or Virginia Wolfe. A most blatant example of this intentional negligence dealing with Chicano writers can be found in Literatura Chicana: texto y contexto, in which a selection of John Rechy is given a fourteen-line introduction which does not mention that Rechy is a nationally known, best selling gay activist writer.

Estela Portillo Trambley's Fictive Search for Paradise

Much Chicano fiction can be seen as a search for values in a world that is hostile to those values. In the case of the Chicana artist, the hostility is twofold. She is the target of both racism and sexism. It is no wonder, then, when a Chicana's literary expression is rooted in dissatisfaction. One outstanding case in point is Estela Portillo Trambley's collection of short fiction and drama, ofScorpions and Other Writings. One aspect of Portillo Trambley's writing which distinguishes her from many male Chicano writers is her criticism, not only of American society, but of some Chicano traditions and social structures as well. Dissatisfied with the inferior position of women advocated by many Chicano traditionalists, Portillo Trambley turns to ancient mythical structures as models of an ideal balance in the cosmos. This original balance, she seeks to inform her readers, precedes and excels the inequity she exposes in traditional Mexican customs and social structures that aggrandize men at the expense of women. She also uses this primordial model as a basis for criticizing American corruptions of it, such as the exploitation of the land and workers by American industry in the novella Rain of Scorpions. Portillo Trambley envisions a paradise--an ideal state of mind and spirit--that turns to ancient mythical models as a basis for urging reform in both Chicano and American social attitudes and structures. In applying the paradise motif to of Scorpions, one can place most of the stories within it in either of two categories: those illustrating the failure to find paradise and those illustrating the successful quest. Paradise in Portillo Trambley's writings is a vision of cosmic wholeness within human consciousness. The author posits for her readers an ideal world where conflicting elements-male and female, reason and instinct, order and chaos--coexist in dynamic balance. In some stories she suggests this balance by creating characters who recognize and accept this world view. In others she creates characters in social environments that deny such a world view and demand the subjugation of one element by its opposite. When such an imbalance occurs, the result is destruction. This world view is derived from ancient Nahua cosmology, for the opposing forces of Portillo Trambley's works are remarkably similar to the ancient Mexican belief that the world is governed by the struggles for supremacy among the four sons of Ometeotl, the gods of the four directions. The domination of one god and his attendant qualities over the others is responsible for the cosmic cataclysms in the Nahua myth of the Five Suns.[ 1] In of Scorpions destruction occurs on a microcosmic level, for it is men and women, not gods, who inhabit her fictive world and give it motion. Motion is fundamental to interpreting the work of Estela Portillo Trambley, for the paradise of her vision is dynamic, not static. While a balance between opposites is crucial to the attainment of wholeness, this balance is paradoxically achieved, not through