Wrapping it up...

Well I can hardly believe this is the last blog of the semester! Overall I enjoyed these books, and I definitely learned a lot about Chicano, Latino literature, and I found it all quite interesting. If I were to rate the books in order of preference, one being my favourite and six being my least favourite, this is the order I would choose: 1. “and a body to remember with”, 2. “How the García Girls Lost their Accents”, 3. “Who Would Have Thought It?”, 4. “Woman Hollering Creek”, 5. “Y no se lo tragó la tierra”, and 6. the selections from José Martí.

In the selections written by José Martí, I really appreciated the descriptive imagery he used. I particularly enjoyed reading the last two short stories, “El Terremoto de Charleston”, and “Nueva York Bajo La Nieve”, mainly because his writing style made it so easy to imagine myself as a character within the stories…and I always enjoy when I am able to feel as though I am a part of the story I am reading.

“Y no se lo tragó la tierra” was interesting, and spoke a lot about social injustice especially for Chicanos living in Texas during the 50’s. I ended up reading the English version to gain a better understanding of the story. I thought it was interesting that the protagonist’s resolution to his problems was independence; choosing to do things on his own…I would have been interested to see his life afterwards, and whether or not he was satisfied…

Woman Hollering Creek….ohhhh woman hollering creek! There were so many hours spent writing this Wikipedia article that I gained such a huge appreciation for the work as a whole. One of my sections for the article was looking at the characters within this book…I particularly was impacted by Cleófilas, who thought she knew what she wanted in life, only to later discover disappointment and heartache. This story really jumped out at me and made me reflect on decisions in my own life, and the magnitude of the effects they can have on one's life.

I loved “Who Would Have Thought It?” simply because it was a fun read. I enjoyed the bits of suspense, the love story, and that it truly was a comedy of errors. I definitely laughed a lot throughout!

“How the García Girls Lost their Accents” was also thoroughly enjoyable, and informative at the same time. I thought it was important to learn more about the lives of Latino immigrants from another country other than Mexico. I found Alvarez’s writing style attractive…mainly her use of timeline and the order in which she told the story. It definitely kept my attention! My favourite chapter was, of course, the last when we get a bit of a summary of Yolanda’s life and the trials she faces as an adult who is trying to make sense of her past. The “cat” metaphor was quite ingenious and I found it helped me to better understand where Yolanda was coming from.

My favourite book of the semester was without a doubt, “and a body to remember with”…It was quite amazing to read this book and then be able to hear from the author herself. The hardship and life struggles that Rodriguez depicts in this novel are so raw and lifelike and the detail with which she writes is so very intriguing…I was drawn in to the book immediately.

Anyways those are a few of my thoughts on the books we read this semester. This class has been great, it’s really sparked my interest to delve deeper into Latin American literature. Thanks Jon! Cheers...

and a body to remember with

Rodriguez definitely captured my attention, but I think I’d need to read the book again to fully understand all of the connections and relations between the different characters and their life stories. So I would say that I enjoyed reading this book, but at times I found myself lost in trying to figure out the timeline, and who was doing the narrating, or who was the daughter, mother, grandmother, brother, uncle, aunt or friend of who…it wasn’t until the last chapter that I noticed details and stories starting to come together. But again, I think if I read the book again it might make more sense; kind of like when I read Woman Hollering Creek again…I loved it the second time around.

Anyways, I loved that a lot of the story took place in Vancouver, and that there were so many references to familiar places like Granville Island, Arbutus and Commercial Drive. She even mentioned a trip to my “homeland” the Okanagan, which was great.

On a different note, something that stood out to me was the amount of emotion and feeling present in this book; particularly the contrast between hope and despair. In the chapter Bodily Yearnings, the heading “happy end” gives the reader a false sense of relief thinking that finally at least someone’s life is going to have a happy ending, as with Yolanda and her having a man who wants to marry her…but this relief, this hope is cut short when we find in fact that Yolanda does not have a happily-ever-after-life when she leaves her husband on a one way ticket back to Chile. This is just one example among many throughout the book where hopes are dashed. And yet, despite these hardships, there are still pockets of hope. For example, though Canada has the difficulties of integrating into a foreign society, it offers life and freedom; things that weren’t available in Chile.

All in all, despite having some confusion with the different narrators and the timeline, I did enjoy this book, and appreciate it a lot more knowing that it is based on the author’s own life. I’m excited to be able to hear more from her when she comes on Friday!

Why the captured and abandoned kitten at the end?

What is the significance of Yolanda’s captured and abandoned kitten? What does she mean when she says, “There are still times I wake up at three o’clock in the morning and peer into the darkness. At that hour and in that loneliness, I hear her, a black furred thing lurking in the corners of my life, her magenta mouth opening, wailing over some violation that lies at the center of my art.”? (286) And what violation is she talking about?

Well, I skimmed through the chapters specifically about Yolanda to see if I could come up with answers to my questions…and I found some interesting correlations between Yoyo and this little forlorn kitten. Although some of the chapters offer the points of view of different family members, the majority of the book focuses on Yolanda and I think the last chapter is strategically written to provide an encoded reflection of Yolanda’s life; the way this fragile kitten is abused and trapped, parallels the ways in which Yolanda is stifled and violated throughout her life.

Yolanda doesn’t seem to find her place or fit in anywhere she goes. In the first chapter of the book, her relatives single her out as “Miss America”, and “look[ing] terrible” and they scold her when she reverts to speaking English, after having forgotten her Spanish vocabulary due to living in the States. She is also noted as the sister who (with cousin Mundin) formed the only boy/girl pair of “best friend cousins” out of her family. It is the same in America, for example in her first year of school in the States, she is the “only immigrant” in her class and is therefore given a “special seat” so that she could be tutored without disturbing other kids. Whether it’s in her homeland, or America, Yolanda is considered as “different”, therefore it is quite symbolic that the kitten that Yoyo immediately singles out, is “one who had four little white paws and a white spot between the ears, fully dressed, so it looked as opposed to the others who were careless and had lost their shoes and their caps.”

Like the kitten, Yoyo has been violated, stifled and put in a box all throughout her life. She is used by people like Rudy who only want her for sex, and stifled by people like John, who see her only under a certain light (for example: only allowing her to have Americanized nicknames). In the same way that she traps the kitten in her drum, Yolanda is trapped in a cage that is built by those around her, and is unable to escape on her own. This is evidenced when she winds up in a mental institute and relies completely on the doctor to save her. Yolanda has a drum but can’t play, just like the kitten has a life but can’t live. She is constantly tormented; constantly crying out, like the meowing kitten, but is too fragile to be able to save herself. Maybe it is because her “roots” are torn up and transplanted before she is able to develop her own sense of self and so she spends her whole life trying to figure out who she is; while being caught between two opposing worlds. In the end, she winds up wounded and lost and wailing over some violation that lies at the center of her art.

Food for thought...

“How the García Girls Lost Their Accents” has been my favourite novel thus far! I have laughed out loud so many times, and have also been close to tears. Even though I was born and raised in the same country, I feel like I can still relate to the four sisters with some of the different victories and failures that they experienced while growing up in two different nations. I am really enjoying how each chapter zooms in on a different character. Sometimes the chapters include all four of the García sisters and other times they revolve around one. Anyways I think it’s a fantastic way for the author to provide insight into the characters’ lives both individually and together as a family.

In one of my favourite chapters called “Daughter of Invention”, Yolanda has to write a speech for “Teacher’s Day” at her school, and after toiling for hours over this project she is finally able to write a speech that is both intelligent and thought provoking...something that, in her father’s eyes, crosses the boundaries of the American “freedom of speech”. And so, the protagonist of this chapter proudly practices her speech in front of her parents, only to have her appalled father rip up her sole copy. The author provides us with such vivid imagery of a daughter and father who, within a matter of seconds, are filled with such animosity towards each other, which provoke them to say and do some hurtful things contrary to each one’s character. However, following this episode is a scene with such a beautiful reconciliation that I almost cried! After reacting so violently, her father tries desperately to make amends, explaining that it was only out of love and out of his desire to protect her honour that he didn’t want her to make that speech. He feared the negative reaction she would get from her teachers. Anyways, he ends up coaxing her out of her room by telling her how much he loves her, and then he seals the reconciliation with a gift that he has bought for her, an electric typewriter; something she has wanted for a long time.

On a side note....I have often thought that when people buy gifts as a means to reconcile, that they’re trying to figuratively “buy back” that person’s love and acceptance. However, I’ve come to realise that when a father does this out of love it is not because he is trying to buy back his child’s love, it is because he loves his child so much that he wants to demonstrate it by doing whatever he can to make it up. So, sometimes he does this with an apology and a gift... (just some food for thought!) This story brought me near to tears because it really captured the protective yet desperate love that a father can have for his child.

Anyways I am excited to see where this book goes and I’m hoping that the author will provide the reader with some sort of resolution for these girls who feel so out of place living in America

My thoughts on Cisneros' vibrant writing style

Wow! Cisneros uses so many different writing techniques throughout her work...it’s been fun to study them! I chose to write about a few stories where the different stylistic techniques stood out to me.

Woman Hollering Creek

One thing that I found interesting that was brought up in my discussion group in class is the author’s use of short, choppy and often fragmented sentences. We have a great example of this on pg 53, “...just a loan, for the baby’s medical expenses. Well then if he’d rather she didn’t. All right, she won’t. Please don’t anymore. Please don’t....But please, at least for the doctor visit. She won’t ask for anything else. She has to. Why is she so anxious? Because.” By using these abrupt and unfinished sentences, Cisneros is able to poignantly illustrate the scattered feelings of anxiety, and apprehension, experienced by the female protagonist, Cleófilas.
Another aspect of style which was brought up in class is the author’s use of one sided conversations; those of which portray the standpoints of the female characters. It seems like Cisneros is providing a sharp contrast here with giving voice only to the women, in attempts to shed light on a past where the right to have a voice, forcibly belonged only to men. Cisneros gives this right to the women in her stories and does not allow, what I feel she implicitly communicates as, the ‘overpowering’ voice of a man to be heard.

Eyes of Zapata

I was a little bit confused with the timeline of this story because it is totally out of order. However I believe it starts in the present, then travels to the past, and comes back to the present. This transition between the present and past happens repeatedly, and adds even more colour to the already vibrant style of Cisneros’ work. These flashbacks help to illustrate the main character’s past dreams versus the reality of her present life, which like so many of the other characters’ lives in Cisneros’ stories, is filled with hardships. The last line of this story emphasizes the importance of these transitions through time, “Let me look at you. Before you open those eyes of yours. The days to come, the days gone by. Before we go back to what we’ll always be.” This quote sums up the dreaded reality of the protagonist’s life, which for the reader, is enhanced by the author’s mixture of flashbacks and present time.

There Was a Man, There Was a Woman

In this short narration, Cisneros uses a lot of repetition. She basically tells the exact same story twice, one being the story of a man, and the other being that of a woman. It seems like this is one of the only times the author portrays both male and female as equal, giving both a voice. Both sexes are struggling through life, looking for answers at the bottom of a bottle. I think that this use of repetition provides a way to show that men and women are equal and both struggle with the same issues. The fact that the man and woman in this story never meet due to having opposite pay days, seems to be a reflection of how the women and men in Cisneros’ work never seem to connect and therefore can never understand each other. Both struggle with similar issues but are so consumed with their own problems that they miss the opportunity to work together and unite through their common hardships.

There are so many more aspects to Cisneros’ writing style that I would like to comment on...so little time...:)

Thought Provoking...

Well the first time I read Woman Hollering Creek I had a hard time piecing these stories together...probably because, as critic Ilan Stavans claims, they are more like “verbal photographs” (a little tidbit from our Wikipedia article!) therefore, they often lack either a beginning, middle or end...or sometimes even all three. After doing some researching for our article, I’ve gained a huge appreciation for why Cisneros writes the way she does, and in reading this book a second time with knowing what to expect, I have enjoyed it so much more. Instead of trying to figure out how one story is connected to the next, I was able to step back and see more of the overall picture. I really like how she categorizes her writings into the three sections: childhood, adolescence and adulthood, and that within these sections one can learn through Cisneros’ down-to-earth writing style about what life is truly like for chicanas, living on either side of the Mexican border.

My favourite of the three sections would have to be “There Was a Man, There Was a Woman”, and I particularly was drawn in by the title story “Woman Hollering Creek”. I had the same reaction while reading this narrative as I did when I read “Y no se lo tragó la tierra”; I wanted to reach out and help both books’ protagonists escape from the hard realities of life that they faced. Cleófilas, our female protagonist is off to marry the man she thought she had waited all her life for. However, she is unaware of the downward turn her life is about to take when her new husband becomes abusive, and unfaithful. She ends up wishing she could return home despite the “chores that never ended, [her] six good for nothing brothers and one old man’s complaints” ...this is the same “old man” who, though foreseeing her future filled with hardship, sent her off with the words “I am your father I will never abandon you”. These words of her father just melted my heart, and made me want to jump right into the story to tell Cleófilas she was making a grave mistake...and that she should at least stay where she is loved. I hated reading how poorly she was treated in her marriage and I felt that it would better to be single and (in her case) at home where she is accepted and loved rather than to be married to someone who is unloving and abusive...Anyways, I appreciated this narrative a lot because it is so relative to today...the choices you make, especially important ones such as marriage, can have such a drastic effect on your future...

Reading this book for the second time has been great...and I’m excited to revisit the second half this next week.

My recap thus far...

Overall I would say that I have enjoyed the material we’ve covered in this class. It is the first time that I’ve studied Chicano literature and so far I have found it to be quite intriguing. The books we have read as well as the film we watched, together offer four different perspectives on past and present day issues including, but certainly not limited to, race, gender, society and politics.

Our first reading entitled: Who Would Have Thought It? by Maria Ruiz de Burton, disguises itself as a book about family affairs, passion, romance etc. However, underneath the surface we find that it reveals the many different societal and political hierarchies, while at the same time, highlighting a series of gendered relationships between the government as well as particular government officials and those without power. This work turns out to be a sort of “comedy of manners” on a political stage. I really enjoyed this book...it captured my attention..loved everything accept the ending!

Secondly we read a series of short stories by José Martí, including: El Puente De Brooklyn, Coney Island, Fiestas de la Estatua de la Libertad, El Terremoto de Charleston, and Nueva York Bajo La Nieve. The works of this author who fought for the independence of Cuba acted as a bridge between the Anglo-Saxon and Latin-American worlds. (I plan to reread these stories though...because I am still somewhat lost as to their content...!)

Finally, it was: Y no se lo tragó la tierra written by Tomás Rivera, that concluded our readings. This story was about the hardships faced by los campesinos in the 1950’s. Rivera is able to weave the stories of particular campesinos into that of the main character and his struggle to overcome the oppression of religion as well as racial and classist discrimination. This book delivered such a strong message of a need for justice and redemption in this corrupt world of ours...I thought it was very well-written.

Now for the film: Salt of the Earth written by Michael Wilson. (Unfortunately I was only able to see the second half of it.) This video has to do with a lower class community of Mexican American and Anglo miners and their families, all of which who fight for better working conditions. In this film, class transcends gender and racial differences, as this mixed community is able to unify themselves to achieve their common goal.

Well that’s all for now...til next time...!