the end

the books that we read during the class definatley made me think of borders although being a physical reality, is quite a socially made up concept. All the books we read showed us that its hard to be either here or there, or to be this or that. The characters have all been quite fluid as well as the authors and described to us the difficulties of having to accustom to new life in a new place, as well as accustom to how the old life is viewed while living in your new world. I think that these books, especially the last three have shown the different ways remembering is portrayed (like in Rodriguez's memory is portrayed through the body), becoming accustomed to something (dont like the word assimilation) because no one really fully assimilates when you come to a new place. I really liked the themes we delt with in these stories and it was really interesting to see how even though the stories took place in different places, with different latino cultures..its still the same themes that are brough out. My favourite book by far was sandra cisneros's Women Hollering Creek. i loved everything she had to say and the way she writes is just so blunt and powerful. I felt that some of her stories she put in for the reader to think about if it really ties into chicano life and if so for what reason (like the marloboro man one). i think the notion of identity will always be one of the strongest themes that comes out throughout chicano literature because in th end, its kind of what we all strive for. To identify ourselves with a place, a religion, a race, a gender...its all those things that make up our identity but its not just black and white and thats why these authors write in the way that they do, to try and show us the hardships one goes through to identify themselves to sense that they belong to something or somewhere. i wonder if thats been ingrained in our minds by society that we need to label ourselves by where we come from in order to feel like we exist in the world? hmmmm...something to think about...

more thoughts...

in the second half of the book, i found that chronologically things began to flow a lot more. i was able to now see the reasoning behind all the crazy behaviour that we witnessed in the first half. Once again the topic of assimilation and racism is brought up. Constantly we are witnessing the different reasons as to why perhaps the girls grew up some what crazy, each in her own way. The part about Clara being made fun of and seeing a pedifile and also when Yolanda had to make her speech are only a few of the scenes where we see them struggling to identify themselves in this new country where they are constantly discriminated against. This led to them losing more and more of the identities as Dominicanas and identifying more with the US way of life. Its not only the girls that are going through constant identity crises'. The father not knowing how to act towards the promiscuous Mrs. Fanning and then the mother with all her inventions being stolen from her are constantly under attack by these foreign things. Again i feel like, i could relate a lot to what the girls went through, why the mother was so crazy about their manners and being proper and putting up this perfect show. I bet that as much as they felt like charity cases (which is what a lot of immigrants feel like when they cannot provide for their families) they still tried to maintain their dignity. Carlos was even lucky being able to get a doctor related job because more doctors who come from foregin countries have to take defend their Phds by taking all these courses. its like being tested if your good enough (like if the standards in your country are good enough to be used in America) and this is only one of the dynamics immigrants face when coming to a new country. This is why you see immigrants with their masters and PHD's working as housekeepers or caretakers. as much freedom as north america may appeal to have, immigrants as long as they will live in their new country, will always feel a sense of not belonging. (this is me venting about my personal experience....sorry.... :)

better late than never...

im really captured by this story and especially the bluntess as to how it is told. This novel, although coming from a distinct hybrid point of view, is actually something a lot of immigrants can relate to. Having immigrated twice i can relate to all the girls in a sense, and the problems they've gone through. From traditional ethnic values to religion, all of these topics play an important role in the upbringing of a child, and especially when that child goes through adolescense. When children and parents grow up in different worlds, points of view are going to clash. Also i found that losing and reviving your heritage is an important theme in this novel. A lot of novels that we've covered have been about being in lost in between two worlds and not finding oneself, and although this book can relate to it, i find that the women go through a process of self realization. yolanda with wanting to be called yolanda and not any of her nicknames. I think the hardest thing with children and parents from different worlds is understanding the cultures. We see when different themes are brought up like dating, sex, babies, drugs, and even being immersed into the "white" world. my parents still dont understand anything. and even if they're white they havent got a clue about "north american" cutltural norms and they've lived her for 15 years.

all i can say is wow....

the two stories in the second half that really had an effect on me were "eyes of Zapata" and "bien pretty." Eyes of Zapata really showed the sadness and vulnerability of this woman who is longing for something that she cannot have which is kind of what Bien Pretty is about as well. I just found Eyes of Zapata to be some poetically written and written in a manner that is so vivid one can almost image being in her place. The way this woman describes Zapata as he sleeps has so much detail in it, and you can feel the devotion and her love towards this silent and misterious person who never fully appreciates her. Her description of how they met to her description of where they are now and how he is with other women shows us her emotions over time and filled me ( the reader) with sadness and how this love withers over time , but not because of her losing her feelings towards him, but because of who he is, the situation of mexico during this time, and all the hardships she went through, eventually becoming numb to it all. This story is filled with so much heartache and suffering because of love, that it makes one wonder whether the mistified zapata was all he was led up to be?? it definatley made me question and at times hate him and his motives while at the same time attracted to his character more and more, which is what i think, the woman is going through.

Bien pretty also talks about a woman losing her man. also a man that comes off as mysterious. I liked how it showed the ignorance of this americanized mexicana towards other mexicans. For example when she asked Flavio if he knew any indigenous dances. I think that after he left, and after agonizing for so long, she finally decided to start living her life how it was meant to be lived. Not watching herself live her days but actually living them. She seemed to have been really affected by this mexicano who whisked her off her feet and then disappeared, someone who she thought had the image of a god, not like those americanos she used to date. I found it interesting how she noted that she could never have sex in english again, because the way spanish flowed and all carinitos used.

Anyways all in all, this was an extroardinary book. I loved the way it was written in short stories and the amount of detail and poetism that Cisneros uses. Id love to know where her inspiration came from for each of these little stories.

cisneros' craziness!!!

this book is sort of written in a familiar way to that of "y no se lo trago la tierra" in the way that it is also fragmented and is broken up into little sections that talk about random (or are they) events and have various titles. the book is a great read and made me want to read more and more. Im curious as to the fact of who these narrators are and where are they located. i guess sometimes they're in mexico and sometimes in the states???

Also something i found interesting is that all the narrators that ive read so far have been children which is another similarity to "y no se lo trago la tierra." I like that this book is in Spanglish (well more english than spanish,,,but you know what i mean).

The point of view of children (of different ages as well) is a really interesting way to get a good perspective on the different situations they were in. From being in a church to being indifferent of someone's death, i thought that each child narrator brought their own persona forward.

The little stories are very random as well. I started out laughing at many of them to being a little shocked at the others. her style of writing is very easy too. Apart from having lots of short sentences or run on sentences, i liked the amount of detail she used to describe scenes (like the one with the Barbies).

Some of the scenes you could almost relate to. By putting yourself back in the age of that child or even now. The scene with the church and people walking on their knees, brought me back to the times that i was in mexico and had witnessed the same thing.

Cisneros obviously puts out many chicano issues up front for the reader. For example when the foreigners wanted to take the pictures of the children outside the church and then realized they were "mericans." I felt that this passage apart from showing cultural diversity, definatley showed cultural ignorance (at least on the gringo side). Also in the other passages when it starts talking about sex, it made me tie this theme back with religion, how mexican catholic females were brought up and the different stereotypes and consequences that came along with rebelling against this traditionalism. Another theme was poverty, when the narrator talked about the boy in her school who had to dress his brothers, and help his mother, and lived poorly, and dressed bad. I think poverty is a large issue in mexican/chicano life, whether it being in the united states or mexico.

Overall, from what ive read, im really enjoying it and hopefully going to be enjoying it even more.

re cap...

i really enjoyed reading the three very differently stylized chicano books. My favourite one by far would have to be "y no se lo trago la tierra" just because of the style its written in, the point of view of a narrator who is a young child, and the highly controversial themes that arise throughout the book.

I hope though, that in the novels to come, we touch on issues like chicana feminism and the problems that arise in their lives, in contemprorary USA. i was surpised not to have found a single book or at least an article by Gloria Anzaldua, who is one of the most influential chicana women writers out there. For anyone who is interested in this literature i highly recommend reading her work. She is highly inspirational and has a very unqiue and magnificent style of writing.

Another theme that i feel we haven't touched on as much, and perhaps its because we've been reading about mexico/USA in the 1950's and earlier on, but the idea of space i find is really important when talking about chicanos. Where does one belong when he/she does not belong to either place or belongs to both. Gloria Anzaldua talks about this state called "nepantla", which is like an in between state...kind of like limbo. I think its a really big issues that many chicanos deal with while trying to build their identity...obviously being chicano is a socially constructed identity that gives people from mexico living in the states, some identity. However, the idea of not wanting to fully assimilate to the american way of life and also trying to stay away from the traditional mexican norms (for women, for example) puts chicanos in a place where perhaps neither here nor there is good..which leaves them in this states of nepantla.

I hope the coming up books deals with feminism and space because for our class, these are important grounds to cover. and if we can throw a little Anzaldua in the way,,,that would be fabulous!!! happy thanksgiving!!!

mas de mis opiniones...

Bueno...me gusto mucho de lo que hablabamos en nuestro clase la ultima semana. Me parecio muy interesante que teniamos tantos diferente analizaciones del mismo parafo en el libro. Pero aunque tenia un opinion muy fija, los otros estudiantes cambiaron mi mente...entonces me parecio que la tema de religion fue muy importante en este libro. El protagonista esta desarrollando como una persona independiente durante el libro. En la segunda parte del libro empieza a questionar todo lo que esta pasando alrededor de el. La parte sobre los pecados del cuerpo me hizo pensar mucho en la corrupcion de la iglesia. Una parte que me hizo sentir muy raro y tambien creo que fue una manera muy sutil en decir que la iglesia tiene sus pecados tambien. "A la monjita le gustaba que dijeramos los pecados del cuerpo" (p.53). La primera imagen que entro mi mente era la violacion de los ninos por los padres. Me parece interesante que el narrador lo dijo con tanta traquilidad como si no fuera algo importante. Ademas la pareja que estaba "haciendo el amor" (o como quiere llamarlo) atras de la iglesia fue otro senal que la iglesia tambien es perversa (en su propia manera)...

Ademas creo que el nino, aunque al final del libro tal vez no llego a la realizacion, pero el empezo a entender que el dios y el diablo tiene poco que ver con lo que esta pasando a su rededor. Eso, le hace pensar mucho en los valores y tradiciones en que crecio, y creo que tambien como trata a ellos que le han dicho lo que ya estan mentiras para el ( tal vez mas dudas que mentiras). Que piensa el sobre todo lo que dijeron sus padres sobre la religion?

ps: sorry for the lack of accents ...dont have accents on this thing.... :)

y no se lo trago la tierra...

hmmm....my initial impression of this book...well i thought it was a little odd that it was a childrens novel. although i do understand that the child is the narrator however i found it hard to follow in terms of who and what was being talked about. I dont know if this happened to only me but i found in hard (at the same time interesting) that we don't know the narrato's name or those of his family. come to think of it...we rarely in the book hear about names. (only a few). that's why i found it a little complicated at times in terms of who they were talking about and to whom things were occuring. At the end of the book we see a lot of cursing which suprised me, as i heard that this was meant for children.

I also didn't quite get the rythym of the book. Like, sometimes it would talk about one event, then another, that had nothing to do with eachother. Other times he would start talking about something and then go back in time. There was a flow...but it was a weird one. Not the usual chronological order that we're all used too i guess..

Anyways, on the the contents of the book. I really enjoyed the little short stories that would be talked about. Although there was no major climax or action in the book, i thought it did a very good job in describing (from a child's point of view) the realities of working campesinos.. I noticed that it touched on religion a lot (from the devil, to the church, to cursing god) which was interesting to see because of the different situations the boy was in and how he viewed religion.

I feel that maybe it was fragmented stories because it was symbolic of their fragmented lives in a way. The fact that they always had to travel and weren't in one place for a long period of time is exaclty why the stories were short and there wasn't actually any response to any of them. they just happened. there was no follow up.

I think there's a lot more to this story that im still trying to piece together and im excited to here other people's opinions on it!!

what the hell???

um...........i had just a few issues with the first of this book about the "puente del Brooklyn." Besides the fact that i had to look up every second word, it was really hard for me to get through 5 pages the details of the Brooklyn bridge. And i dont mean to be hasty, because i too, appreciate detail and he de it very well, but why about something so dull (and yes it was dull) like a bridge. Im not sure why he wrote about the bridge but it did give off a goo image of the magnitude of the power in size of the bridge, and the effort it took by so many people to contstruct something that is so beyond our size. Im not sure what this has to do with chicanos though.

I think that the author has a very unique style in his writing as he observes everything he sees and uses a lot of comparison. When i read his writing he makes me feel like there is just so much going on. He talks alot about crowds and people and i just felt like the scene of "Gable" in New York was over crowded yet awkwardly glorious (if that makes any sense). anyways hopefully as i keep reading ill try to make some sense of what the author is trying to get at...

final thoughts...

i know my blog is a little late. my apologies but i have been sharing the book. Although the book didnt end with any new found discoveries and was not exaclty a surprise ending, i was still a little surprised to not find anything out about the doctor and what happened to him. Also, although i was a bit surprised at how the major continued on with his life, i wasn't shocked at all. I feel that what happened in the last part of the novel, really represented the corruption and broken ideals of the government (and not only the american one). I think that this still goes on today in many governments all over the world, including our own.

What suprised me a bit was Julian Norval's shock as to how he was being treated. This part reminded me a lot of what Lavvy went through with having all his patriotic ideals and dreams broken about this "amazing" government. Obviously with Julian being male and having some influence over others, he was able to recover from the misunderstanding, however only to be forever crushed about the apparent 'freedom" his government claims to give all its citizens.

My only compaint (or whatever you want to call it) is that although this book did deal with mexico and the USA, it didn't really give me the impression that it was a chicana writer. Although there were obvious issues about gender and nation, i felt that it had a lot more to do with issues between the US civil war between the North and South.

I would have liked to see the character of Lola develop more and create more of a sense that she is a chicana and the issues that she deals with but specifically from her perspective. Overall, i liked this book a lot because it gave me an idea of how american society worked during this time in terms of gender, race, politics etc...and their relationship with "foreigners." Good choice john...

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT... that it would be a really great telenovela..

My reactions to the first part of the novel is quite positive. I found it to be very captivating because of the flow and easiness of the story. I think that it is an interesting read because it is sort of like a soap opera...and soap operas have drama...and i love drama. But also apart from the drama i think that the first part of the book really touches on important themes that are tied into the course. Race is obviously a big issue and reveals to us the mindset of the people of that time and also the exceptions that are made to overlooking race when other factors, like money are involved. I found it a little weird that Lola was not actually black or native, and that her skin was only painted but perhaps we can see this as symbolic for how looks can be decieving. Another theme i thought was important was your gender related to nation in the novel. It is obvious that women were not valued in that society in terms of politics or government because of their lack of education about the subject. I found Lavvy to be a great example of the portrayel of innocence and ignorance to what was actually going on in her country and the propaganda that she was receiving. I think the dynamics of this book is really interesting and im excited to learn more about it. Im not too sure how this relates to much with chicanos, but perhaps the book touches more on societal views of foreigners during the time of the civil war in the US and how they were an influence or a nuisance to the stereotypical patriotic american citizen. anyways im excited to see what goes on in the book further after the death of the doctor. and mostly to see whether julian and lola end up together...drama drama!!!

hi, im val!

hey class of 322a...my name is valerie and im still in mexico which is why i havent met any of you. im in my last semester of finishing a latin american studies major. im looking forward to this class because i like latin american literature especially about chicanos...im also looking forward to seeing jon speak spanish with a british accent...should be good... :) (jk) anyways thats me...