Chican@Lit&Culture

"Athens Only Once"

2011-10-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

1) Consensus of what the chapter is about

-Use what the most appropriate active verb

"In Athens Once", Rodriguez meticulously alludes to an identity confused Tijuana that sits in an indeterminate cultural state between the constant influencing north and its unforgiving homeland.

2) Identify 3 concepts

a) Animosity (Mexico City and American on Tijuana)

b) Religion

c) Mexico as a crowd

d) Tijuana in San Diego/ Tijuana is the new "American Dream"

3) For each concept, 2 representative statements in different discussions

a) pg. 91 -- "American has long imagined itself clean...and vulnerable to the foreign. Aliens are carriers of chaos -- Mexicans are obviously carriers of chaos -- their backs are broken with bundles of it: gray air, brown water, papacy, leprosy, crime, diarrhea, whithe powders, and a language full of newts and cicadas.

pg. 83 -- "Consider Tijuana from Mexico's point of view...People in Mexico City will tell you, if they have anything at all to say about Tijuana, that Tijuana is a city without history, a city without architecture, an American city."

b) pg. 88 -- "Spanish Catholicism bequeathed to Mexico an assumption of Original Sin. Much in life is failure or compromse. The knowledge has left Mexico patient as a desert, and tolerant of corruptions that have played upon her surface."

pg. 90 -- "For Mexicans, the border is not that right Puritan thing, a line. (Straight lines are unknown in mexico.)

c) pg. 81 -- "The point of Mexico is the crowd. Whatever happens in Tijuana, I caution myself, do not imagine you have been singled out. You have entered into the million."

pg. 96 -- "Because Mexico is brown and I am brown, I fear being lost in Mexico. When I get out of the cab, I am in a crowd."

d) pg. 92 -- "Californians use Mexico as an opposite planet."

pg. 87 -- "We are a generation removed from that other city, the city generations of American men mispronounced as "Tee-ah-wanna," by which hey named an alter-ego American city, a succubus that could take them about as far as they wanted to go. [...] When boxing was illegal in San Diego, there was blood sport in Tijuana. There were whores and there was gambling and there was drink."

4) Discern how each concept relates to one another and how they all work to support the overall topic.

There is a clear division between San Diego and Tijuana established in this chapter. However, Rodriguez claims that together, Tijuana and San Diego are "one city," and there is no doubt that Tijuana exists in San Diego. Mexico attracts a crowd of Americans because of the religious tolerance of the Catholic faith for alcohol, prostitution, and any other thing outlawed in the U.S. In fact, Tijuana has become the newly renovated "American Dream" where one is able to unleash guilty pleasures. Rodriguez sheds light on the fact that this causes animosity towards Tijuana from both Mexico and the U.S. Tijuana is seemed as dirty and filthy from an American perspective and Mexico views Tijuana as a lost city to America for it being a city "without history, a city without architecture, an American city." Rodriguez uses all four of these concepts to support the modernity of Tijuana. According to Rodriguez, Tijuana may have lost its appeal to Mexico, but has changed with the influence that San Diego has had on the city of Tijuana.

Chapter 2: Late Victorians

2011-10-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

In chapter two of Days of Obligation, Richard Rodriguez unearths the early comedies and later tragedies of gay San Francisco.

Concepts:

Ends, mortality
youth
art, artifice, "taste"
absence
architecture
cities
family, domesticity

California's need for Connection to the past

2011-10-13T11:05:00.000-07:00

Overall Concept of ch. 5 : ironically contrasts how peoples romanticized perception of Missions in CA with how the missions actually were

1. Irony:

"The same year that Spain purged the foreign from itself, Spain set sail to convert the world." 114

Members must be native born Californians-an odd requirement insofar as the men and women who built California were born elsewhere."122

2. Romance/ imaginative idea of history:

"Tourists come in spite of the religious aspect of the missions. Indeed, the missions are picturesque; they are romantic; they lure the Californian off the freeway for being so different - seeming so pristine - amidst the ancient ruins of twentieth-century California." – 124

"San Jose is the most recently restored of the missions... rebuilt from the ground up - a complete fake. And, for that, probably the nearest approach to the past." - 130

3. Father/ Adam Figure:

“ Father Serra is an authentic pun in California –Father of the state –civilizer, tamer of savages, planter of shade.”-111

“Father Serra can play two parts in a tragedy of California. If he is the first Lost Man, the perceivable Adam, he is well the Angel of the Fiery Sword, forbidding Eden.” -117

4. Importance of Remembrance:

“It reminds me of freeways being built in California; it reminds me of my faith in the future. My nostalgia is for a time when I felt myself free of nostalgia.”-120

“What sorrowing Daughter could not abide was the leveling shrug of a state that honors only the future. Such a state condemned her parents to oblivion.” -123

Connections of Concepts to overall concept of Chapter:

The overarching theme of the chapter is that California, being relatively new, is burdened with the urge to connect itself to the past, even if this means having a broken, self-gratifying understanding of what the past actually contains. For example, the San Jose mission had to be rebuilt and is composed of none of the original masonry, but is still used as a link to the past just to have something. The text has various examples of the ironies that crop up as a result of this need for a historical connection that isn’t really there. Father Serra is prominent because California needed to have it’s own idol. Like the reporters that the archivist complains of, California needs an imagined connection to history, and doesn’t require accuracy.

Mexico's Children

2011-10-12T21:51:00.000-07:00

Meaning of chapter: Rodriguez sardonically examines the public and private self of Mexicans in an American Diaspora.

Concepts:
1. Parenthood (mother vs. father/male vs. female) America = Adopting vs. Mexico parenthood

Passage 1: "Mexico, mad mother. She still does not know what to make of our leaving. For most of the century Mexico has seen her children flee from the house of memory." Pg. 52

Passage 2: "Mexico worries about her own. What influence shall she have? The village is international now...Mexico cannot hold the attention of her children." Pg. 73

2. Private vs. Public Self (Tu vs. Usted) pg. 54, 63, and 68 passages

Passage 1: "At the heart there is tu---the intimate voice---the familiar room in a world full of rooms," ... "Usted, the formal, the bloodless, the ornamental you, is spoken to the eyes of strangers." Pg. 54

Passage 2: "Mexicans have invaded American privacy to babysit or to watch the dying or to wash lipstick off the cocktail glasses...The Southwest is besotted with the culture of tu."

3. Memory and Language

Passage 1:"What is the prognosis for a memory in a country so young? For Mexico is memory...." Pg. 73
Passage 2: "At the end of the week, the tabernacle of memory is dismantled, distributed among the villagers in their vans, and carried out of Mexico." Pg. 79

4. Diaspora/Migration (America/immigrating vs. Mexico/emigrating or [Mexico as an archtransvestite pg. 61]

Passage 1: "Like wandering Jews, Mexicans had no true home but the tabernacle of memory." pg. 48

Passage 2: "Mexicans live in superstitious fear of the American diaspora...In it's male in it's public, in its city aspect, Mexico is an archtransvestite, a tragic buffoon." Pg. 61 (Archtransvestite: "The arch-transvestite personifies the trajectory of a group of transsexuals in Brazil: usually expelled from home or rejected by their families at a young age, they are practically forced into prostitution as the only form of livelihood." [Via Encontros da imagem 2011.] Mexico has expelled its children and forced them to "prostitute themselves to the gringo."

The concepts relate to one another and work to support the overall topic.

Through the use of words like tu and usted, Rodriguez introduces the private and public self of the Mexican emmigrant and the Mexican immigrant and the way they affect and interact with the American southwest. When talking about migrations affecting the way Mexicans imagine themselves in a new land, Mexicans associates memory with the Mexican mother land and that memory becomes the imagined home/diaspora of Mexican Americans.

Themes: Relating to Mexico

Female	Vs.	Male
Intimate/Private	Vs.	Public
Mother	Vs.	Father
Tu	Vs.	Usted
Spanish	Vs.	English
Village	Vs.	City

Other Themes:

* Immigrating Vs. Emigrating
* Present Vs. Memory

Critical Viewing and Contested Public Space

2011-02-02T14:15:00.000-08:00

Yolanda Lopez, "Who's the Illegal Alien, Pilgrim?"
1978, National Museum of Mexican Art Permanent Collection
(Chicago, IL.)

Ester Hernandez,"Sun Mad"
1982, Smithsonian American Art

Judith Baca,"Division of the Barrios and Chavez Ravine"
1983, segment of the Great Wall of Los Angeles

Mario Torero, Rocky, El Lton, Zade, "We Are Not a Minority"
1978, El Congreso de Artistas Cosmicos de las Americas de San Diego

2011-02-01T04:28:00.000-08:00

Hola a tod@s and welcome back.

The blog has been on hiatus since I haven't been teaching. And this year/semester, I'm using it for a slightly different purpose as well. I'll post songs, images, and videos that my Intro to Mexican American Studies class will be "reading" alongside the literature. But I'll also continue using the space to comment on my own research and teaching.

Alongside Corky Gonzales's "I am Joaquin" and Lorna Dee Cervantes' "Under the Freeway," I'd like to consider the impact of imagery--signs, symbols, visual art--on contested public space. One of the first images we'll be considering in this light is Wayne Healy's "Ghosts of the Barrio." This image, from Flickr, is also available at USC's Digital Library, where you can zoom in to see details.

Contradictions in Sense of Place in !Caramba!

2009-11-11T03:34:00.000-08:00

Place is the setting in which the events of a story and the actions of its characters take place. In the final scene of !Caramba!, the songs “Red Hot” and “La Cigarra” exhibit the contradictions at work in the sense of place manifested in Lava Landing, represented in the Annual Lava County Labor Day Parade.
In the final scene, the sense of place is defined by those characters and events that inhabit the setting as well as by the things that are absent from it. The most conspicuous characters at the site of the Annual Lava County Labor Day Parade are Lucha and Fabiola (along with their kilo of heroine), April May, and the Volcano, whose lingering threat has lurked through much of the novel. Conspicuously absent are the majority of our other main characters: Consuelo, Natalie, Lulabelle, and Javier, who have all embarked on a journey outside of Lava Landing for the first time in the novel. These are the defining elements of the final scene; each of them, in their own way, interacts with the aural elements of the scene, or what may be called the soundtrack to the events in these characters’ lives. The playlist on this soundtrack consists of “Red Hot”, “La Cigarra”, and also, arguably, April May’s scream and the rumble of the earth’s quaking, as described in the final paragraph of the novel: “April May fills her large lungs with air. She screams…and the Earth responds in kind.”
“Red Hot” and “La Cigarra” inform the sense of place by working in opposition to each other, thus revealing some of the paradoxes in Lava Landing. In so far as it is a mass public gathering that celebrates the town, the Labor Day Parade may be said to represent Lava Landing. Therefore, exploring the contradictions at work in the parade’s “soundtrack” may provide important insights into the sense of place evoked by Lava Landing at large. The Labor Day Parade also happens to be the climax of the novel. Therefore, we expect these contradictions to resolve themselves, or, on the other hand, to explode from the pressure created by their opposition. Of course, we find the latter to be the case, as the final page explains: “Area rocked by 5.9 Quake; County wakes up without queen.”
The opposition between “Red Hot” and “La Cigarra” is most prevalent in their shared subject, which is, very generally speaking, love and/or romantic relationships. While this is readily apparent from “Red Hot’s” chorus, which features the narrator boasting about the superiority of his “gal” over any other, (“My gal is red hot – Your gal ain’t doodley squat”) “La Cigarra” requires some closer reading to identify its subject. The greater part of the song is devoted to a description of the narrator’s great sorrow. It is not until the third stanza that the source of this despair is revealed, which is none other than unrequited or painful love.

Un palomito al volar
Que llevaba el pecho herido
Ya casi para llorar
Me digo muy afligido
Ya me canso a buscar
Un amor correspondido

A little dove upon flying
Bearing a wounded breast
Was about to cry
And told me very afflicted
I’m tired of searching for
A mutual love

(translation: http://www.lyricstime.com/ronstadt-linda-la-cigarra-lyrics.html)

The paradox between the two songs revolves around the fact that while they share a general subject, their attitudes are in complete discord with each other. “Red Hot” is fun-loving, self-assured, even flippant. The narrator’s descriptions of the “gal” in question are limited to shallow expressions of her physical characteristics (“six feet four”), behavior, (“Well she walks all night, talks all day”) and the like. Meanwhile, “La Cigarra” is mournful, tragic, and deadly serious. Although the object of affection is not described, his/her impact is very tangible in the life of the narrator:

Y quiero morir cantando
Como muere la cigarra

And I want to die singing
Like the cicada dies

Likewise, the sound of “Red Hot” and “La Cigarra” are at odds. “Red Hot” is an upbeat rockabilly tune; “La Cigarra” is a sorrowful ranchera song. As suggested by their association with each of the characters, “Red Hot” and “La Cigarra” may be said to be the theme songs of April May and Fabiola, respectively.
In the final scene, the sense of place derives from the tension in identity between these two characters. April May goes to great efforts to win over the judges on the Miss Magma panel, and for nine years her efforts have proved fruitful. However, some discontent is growing in the ranks of the judges, a sentiment expressed in the observation, “APRIL MAY MIGHT REPRESENT OUR VOLCANO, BUT SHE DOES NOT REPRESENT US.” April May also happens to be ugly, Anglo (if we can judge by the description that she was “so pale her veins showed through her skin”), and apparently biologically male. Fabiola is beautiful, Mexican-American, and, of course, female. She isn’t interested in the prestige of Miss Magma—in fact, she’s not even registered as a contestant, and casts off the Miss Magma crown after it is placed on her head.
April May and Fabiola reflect on the oppositions at play in Lava Landing. Although located in California, the city—or at least the part of it the reader sees—is thoroughly Mexican-American, and Mexican culture permeates the pages of the novel. Earlier in its history it was devastated by a volcano eruption, and yet the lava flow ultimately became a boon for the city’s inhabitants: it made the soil especially fertile, resulting in a mass migration of Mexican laborers every harvest season. Brujeria, loosely translated as witchcraft, plays a major role in the story, and yet the same characters who ply its trade exhibit religious devotion, or exhibited it at one time (Lullabelle and the brujo that Fabiola and Lucha visit). Thus, the sense of place is ultimately one made deeply familiar through the characters we are introduced to, yet rife with contradictions that complicate the sense of place and push the community to the point of explosion, in the form of the earthquake. When the earthquake does occur, it signals the climax of some of the characters’ narratives, namely, the characters present in Lava Landing when the earthquake strikes. Fabiola and Lucha are arrested; jail will likely prevent them from enjoying their newfound riches or avenging Fabiola any time in the foreseeable future. And April May is deprived of a tenth consecutive Miss Magma title. However, Natalie, Consuelo, Lullabelle, and Javier are not present during the climactic earthquake. Will Javier learn to balance the demands of mariachi masculinity with his devotion to missionary religiousness? Will Lullabelle finally decide who is the real keeper of her soul: God or the Devil? Will Natalie and Consuelo come to terms with the tension between their regular dancing and flirting with boys on the one hand, and their deep commitment to one another on the other hand? These contradictions are not resolved.

Memory and Place

2009-11-09T07:24:00.000-08:00

Music is very powerful in that it can trigger and influence our emotions. A simple tune or melody can send someone back to the past of a happy memory or a sad time in their life. This either happens because they can relate to song, perhaps due to the lyrics, or because music was playing during that memory they created. When the elements of tone, tempo and rhythm come together, they perform a powerful spell that can induce deep feelings and a whole range of emotions.
In analyzing one of the final scenes in Caramba, we can denote how music has a powerful effect on the characters participating at the Lava County Labor Day Parade. April-May was the same-old same-old. After winning for nine years in a row and skating to the same song every year, I bet the public was tired and bored of the performance which they observed many times. Also, I feel like the brief moment where we get to see her character, she is portrayed as someone who is a bit of a crab. Now on the other hand we have sweet little Favy. She starts out timid but in the end she has drawn all eyes on the parade on her and is stealing the show.
I think that April-May's performance had become associated with a bad feeling in the eyes and ears of her public. Billy Lee Riley's "Red Hot" was the same piece she performed to every year and I bet when the song started playing, everyone was taken back to the same performance which they new all to well. Favy offered something new, and the way in which she started off slow and gradually increased her momentum drew the attention of the crowd. They were able to create a new happy memory which trumps April-May's same-old same-old.

Songs Setting the Mood

2009-11-09T06:42:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, music is a very good tool for setting moods. I also believe that "sense of place" goes a bit further than just a geographical location in this book. The songs “Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?", and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" not only give us an idea of what kind of physical place the story is taking place in, but also dictate in a way how the characters interact with each other.

"Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?" is the first song that is brought to our attention in the chapter, The Big Five-Four. Just the title of this song does a good job at setting up the mood and what is happening. With Nat just leaving the bathroom, she finds that Consuelo is dancing with sid in a very fun a lighthearted way. Listening to "Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?" makes it very clear that fun and lighthearted is exactly what the author is trying to convey here. As we know, Cid has been interested in Consuelo for almost 10 years but Consuelo has no interest in him. For Consuelo, this is just a fun lighthearted dance with a friend.

The song "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," is the second song that is brought to our attention and i believe this song, in a way, sums up Consuelo's and Nat's fun nights out. I believe this song is important because it makes the reader realize that what Consuelo and Nat are doing is really just wasting their days and nights. We get a sense that they have been coming to this place for a long time and every night they come, they have drinks, dance with guys then go home. They never really meet anyone new and often end up dancing with the same people that they have no interest in. A good example of this is when Consuelo dances again with Cid, instead of find a new dance partner and meeting a new person. Conseulo and Nat are just wasting their days and nights.

As we have seen, these songs do more than just gives a visual on where the story is taking place. The songs actually set the mood and tone of how things are happening in the story and even sum up what is actually taking place at the time.

Cancion del caballo Blanco

2009-11-09T06:32:00.000-08:00

The term sense of place has been defined and utilized in different ways by different people. To some, it is a characteristic that some geographic places have and some do not, while to others it is a feeling or perception held by people (not by the place itself). It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging. Sense of place gives a reader a sense of nostalgia when he/she stumbles upon something they can relate with, such as a song.
In Caramaba, Don Pancho is singing La Cancion del caballo Blanco while intoxicated and on the railroad tracks. The lyrics in the corrido give you an idea of what's going to happen to Don Pancho and the journey he is about to be in.

Cancion del Caballo Blanco
Este es el corrido del caballo blanco
que en un dia Domingo feliz arrancara,
iba con la mira de llegar al Norte,
habiendo salido de Guadalajara.

Su noble jinete le quito las riendas
le quito la silla y se fue 'a puro pelo'
cruzo como rayo tierras Nayaritas
entre cerros verdes y el azul del cielo.

A paso mas lento llego hasta Escuinapa
y por Culiacan ya se andaba quedando
dicen que en Los Mochis ya se iba cayendo
que llevaba todo el hocico sangrando.

Pero lo miraron pasar por Sonora
y el Valle del Yaqui le dio su ternura
dicen que cojeaba de la pata izquierda
y a pesar de todo siguio en su aventura.

Llego hasta Hermosillo, siguio pa Caborca
y por Mexicali sintio que moria,
subio paso a paso por la Rumorosa
llegando a Tijuana con la luz del dia.

Cumplida su hazana se fue a Rosarito
y no quiso echarse hasta ver Ensenada,
este es el corrido del caballo blanco
que salio un Domingo de Guadalajara.

After listening to the song and reading the book, I could see that Nina martinez is trying hint that Don Pancho is about to venture on this journey once he is dead. In a way, Don Pancho is much like the horse in that it is in search of something and won't stop until reaching its destination. Don Pancho's destination in the story is leaving purgatory. Don Pancho feels trapped in purgatory and finds himself haunting everyone in the story because of his sufferings. In the end he finds a way to leave purgatory and become a saint.

Songs as Setting

2009-11-09T05:59:00.000-08:00

From personal experience, we know that songs or musical background can really dictate the mood or feeling in the room - especially at a dance or a party. Not only does music contribute greatly to the atmosphere, but it identifies us with those around us as we can't help but listen to, sway to, or react to a piece of culture together. While music sets a physical, audible place in the Big Five Four for the club-like atmosphere Sway and Natalie enjoy every weekend, it also contextualizes the character in a certain culture, spirit, and perceived time frame for this scene.

Natalie"two-steps" out of the bathroom to the sound of "Hey Baby Que Paso," which the book describes as a "Tex-Mex" song she was particularly fond of. The song is playful, upbeat, and sung in Spanglish by the band Texas Tornados, many of whom are Anglo musicians. The accordion and steady drum beats are characteristic of some mariachi music but the keyboarding and slide guitar also give the tune a characteristic Texas ring.

Though the song sends a very different sentiment, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights," is similar in it's Tex-Mex-ness in the sense that it is a slow, bluesy country ballad sung by a Tejano - Freddy Fender - in the typical style of a song-bird cantador. The song plays while Sway dances with Cal (who has always been sweet on her - in vain). This is an appropriate setting of place for this older, smokey dance hall full of younger women and older men who are looking for a good time on the weekend but not necessarily serious relationships. It also seems to place the Big-Five-Four in a bygone era - the song feels very much like a 50's country song even though it was sung in the 70's.

I think both songs communicate Natalie and Sway's "place" in they country/Tex-Mex, borderland of Lava Landing. The songs paint an audible picture of towns stuck in a time past and people stuck "wasting days and nights" intentionally. They are rather playful songs, but they also communicate the sense of longing that Martinez will continue to communicate throughout the novel for commitment and love.

2009-11-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

Song does more than provide a strong sense of place in "Caramba;" It also puts words to the emotions that each woman is feeling in the story. On page 49, the reader is provided with the back story to April May and her long reign as Miss Magma. Although most people have the perception that beauty queens are beautiful creatures, April May is described as ugly with her freckles, large teeth, pimple-ridden skin and her large feet. For her performance, she roller skates to "Red Hot," which, to me is a tribute to her hair. The song lyrics say,"
My gal is red hot
(Your gal ain't doodly-squat)
Yeah, my gal is red hot
(Your gal ain't doodly-squat)
Well, she ain't got no money
But man, she's a-really got a lot.

In the context, "money," could symbolize good looks, but "she's a-really got a lot" symbolizes the power of her hair, which the author says made her so hot when she said, "She had the brightest, reddest hair in all of Lava County....there was something about all that red hair spilling out of the crater and onto the side of the volcano float." When the song says "Well, she walks all night, talks all day
She's the kinda woman who'll have her way," this could illustrate her determination to stay queen and her way of getting what she wants. The author mentions that "April May was always last to exhibit her talent" during the competition. Her determination is also seen when her hair refuses to abdicate the crown.

Lucha tells Favy,"life gives out very few good opportunities, so when one comes along, a girl's got to make the best of it." Lucha and Favy were on their way to a drug deal, but, when the opportunity presented itself for Favy to find her voice, they pounced on it. The author says that Fabiola, "takes a big, deep breath, as if trying to make up for more than just lost time." Throughout the work, Fabiola seems to be trapped in the time that the "susto" was done to her. By singing, her voice draws in power and transports her out of that time and into the present. No longer is she, as the song calls it, a

"A little dove upon flying
Bearing a wounded breast."

Through her singing, she moves from darkness into light and, seemingly, away from the ocean of despair that she seems to be drowning in, as in "Cigarra" when it makes reference to there being,"another color blacker
Than the color of my sorrows."

April May and Fabiola give sense of place because they are also representations of a volcano about to errupt. When the author writes, "At first, she sings slowly and softly, all the while gathering momentum and volume," it's as if she's describing the moments before a volcano blows and, when she says,"Fabiola sings slowly, and surely, but moreover inevitably, so that by the second verse her voice is as loud and sure of itself," this is representative of the flow of magma boiling over and conquering everything in its path. After Favy destroys the crown, the people expect April May to ride in and save the day, but she chooses to finish her performance. When she falls, her hair described as "long fiery hair has never been longer, has never been thicker, has never been fierier," alludes to the magma that will cover the town. When she screams a scream that is "full of everything that screams are made of," she becomes the voice of the volcano that, like her, has been complacent and and,in essence, her rage and fury at being supplanted become the impetus that causes the volcano to blow.

2009-11-08T18:23:00.000-08:00

“Sense of place” can either be described as a physical geographical location or the meaning people, in this case the characters, give to a specific location, person or object. In my opinion, I think Nina Marie Martinez refers to “sense of place” to describe the emotional and physical place each character has on each other’s life. In the Big Five-Four scene on page 13, and the one on page 250, Martinez associates the song “Hey baby, ¿Qué pasó?” with Natalie “a text-mex tune she was particularly fond of” (14) while the song “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” is associated with Consuelo. Not only do the songs describe the girl’s personalities but it also serves as a revelation of their intimate love they have for each other.

“Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?” is a danceable song, with an up beat whose lyrics both in English and Spanish are magically interwoven to compose the best declaration of love. Natalie’s personality, just like the rhythm of the song, is adventurous and fun, and who is more likely to take initiative on things. Consuelo, on the other hand, is best described by the rhythm of “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” whose slow beat and romantic tone, describes her shyness and hesitation to take the lead.
Most importantly, this song not only describes Consuelo’s and Natalie’s personalities, but I believe is a revelation of their intimate “love” for each other. In “Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?” the verse:

Come on, baby, turn around
Let me see your pretty blue eyes
Don't you know that I love you
Please don't leave me de ese modo.

This verse made me think of Consuelo (who in fact have colored eyes)when she accepts to dance with Cal, making Natalie jealous causing her to respond with that verse.

On the other hand, “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights” Consuelo responds to Natalie with the following verse:

Don't you remember the day.
That you went away and left me
I was so lonely
Prayed for you only, my love.

Is this Consuelo reminding Natalie of the time she went to Mexico and left her all lonely in Lava Landing?

Even though Martinez never establishes the sexuality of Consuelo and Nathalie, I think she gives us a clue on page 343 when Javier goes to Consuelo’s house to declare his love for Nathalie. Martinez writes “When it comes to Natalie, jealously has always been an issue for Consuelo. Its one thing to watch Nat kickin up her heels dancing the night away with some stray cute thang on Saturday night, but to have a young man in her very own livin room declaring long-felt feeling for her best friend is another thing entirely.” I believe Natalie and Consuelo are afraid of accepting their love not only as “best friends” but a more intimate love, that usually happens between a man and a woman. Therefore, their only way of expressing their love is through these two songs: “Hey baby, ¿Qué Pasó?” and “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights”.

THE BIG FIVE-FOUR *sense of place

2009-11-08T16:55:00.000-08:00

Examining one of these two scenes and listening to the attendant songs, explain how the songs either provide a sense of place or complicate the reader's sense of place. You will need first to describe what "sense of place" means in the scene in particular: what defines the place in question. Then, think about the nature of the songs, how they interact with the "place" you have described/defined, and what that suggests about "place" in general in the novel.

Define the term of sense of place.- I was not sure what it means exactly. So when I looked it up online, I found out how place doesn't always describe itself geographically but it could describe by people's feeling or perception. "It is often used in relation to those characteristics that make a place special or unique, as well as to those that foster a sense of authentic human attachment and belonging." (wikipedia)

According to the book- When Natalie came out from the bathroom, she was going to the place, the song Hey baby Que Paso was playing. When I listen to that song in the classroom on friday and read it again, the sense of place felt different. It was different than reading book when I never head the song. I could feel that place with the music. The song itself is really upbeat. Joyful and light. Especially Natalie character an the song just match and perfect for that place for the story I think.

"Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?"

Hey, baby, que paso?

Thought I was your only vato

Hey, baby, que paso?

Please don't leave me de ese modo

Come on, baby, turn around

Let me show you how I feel

Don't you that I love you

And my corazón is real

For the lyrics, I have to translate them first to understand every sentence.

Que paso? = What's up baby?

de ese modo= please don't leave me like this

corazon= And my heart is real

When I heard the music I thought it's just fun and light music but the lyrics are kind of sad and heavy. However Natalie is not a serious woman like music lyrics. I believe that music describe the place and Natalie with the beat only not with lyrics. I don't think Natalie would get moody and heavy serious heart like the lyrics when she listen to that song. She was just ready to enjoy that place I think.

and later when the song "Wasted Day and Wasted Nights" plays and Cal and Consuelo are dancing. and Also Javier leaned toward Natalie. I think this song is really romantic and sweet. LIke the rhythm is slow but fast and the tone is good music for man and woman to dance and talk. Great ambience for that place and scene.

"Wasted Days and Wasted Nights"

Wasted days and wasted nights,

I have left for you Behind

for you don't belong to me

your heart belongs to someone else.

Why should I keep loving you,

when I know that you're Not true?

And why should I call your name,

when you're to blame

for making me Blue?

First of all, the title fits perfect for those meeting between man and woman in that scene.

That night in that place, it was not serious meeting for marriage or anything.

People can meet and leave each other. The time can be wasted for day or night. The song is not describing perfect love, woman heart went to other guy and the guy who loves her think about to not keep love her anymore. That place is not holy and faithful I think. More like having fun dancing and talking in the place in that night.

The songs fit on that place and people in the story I believe and listening to the music for the blog discussion, helped me to catch and see more for the sense of place.

canciones

2009-11-08T16:46:00.000-08:00

Luis Montes

Examining one of these two scenes and listening to the attendant songs, explain how the songs either provide a sense of place or complicate the reader's sense of place. You will need first to describe what "sense of place" means in the scene in particular: what defines the place in question. Then, think about the nature of the songs, how they interact with the "place" you have described/defined, and what that suggests about "place" in general in the novel.

Sense of place is a characteristic people adjoin to a place giving it feeling or perception, which means that it is a human development of what a place should feel like or mean. Sense of place is a human interaction that allows a place to become special or unique. It also plays an important role in authentic human attachment and belonging. What would be a church without a human’s “sense of place”? would it be solemn, peaceful, and warm or just another building. If we did not develop a sense of place how would it feel to visit grandma on the weekend where you spent many days as a child. I believe it would not be the same it would not feel the same. I think people do things in relation to where their at which plays into what they feel at that place.

The scene I chose is the one were Don Pancho is singing “la cansion del caballo blanco” on the railroad track of his town in Mexico. This song sets up the location by showing you tradition, warmth, and nostalgia things that to an old Mexican town would convey. It is as if the town is still stuck in an older era and this song is a reflection of that sense of place. Don Pancho being an old school cat as he is that song would be the most logical song he would sing. You can expect him to sing a new age song like “Elvis Preasly’s – Can’t help falling in love” as he drink his tequila in his truck. Signing something other that an old corridor would take away that sense of place that the town has and with it the value of what that scene is trying to convey, which is a midlife crossroads of life and death purpose and accomplishment with Don Pancho at the center.

A Sense of Place

2009-11-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

The "sense of place" Martínez talks about builds upon the literary term "setting"; the "sense" of place is more than simply describing when and where the action is taking place. It gives the reader a better idea of the characters in the book and what's going on around them. In ¡Caramba!, where Natalie and Consuelo are at the Big Five-Four, "Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" are playing from the jukebox. But why are those songs playing in the background? Even more, why should the song titles be mentioned in the first place? Upon further investigation, that's where the "sense of place" comes in.

A sampling of "Hey Baby, ¿Qué Pasó?":

Hey, baby, que paso?
Thought I was your only vato
Hey, baby, que paso?
Please don't leave me de ese modo

Come on, baby, turn around
Let me show you how I feel
Don't you that I love you
And my corazón is real

Based upon the Texas Tornadoes' rendition, "Hey Baby" is a fun, light-hearted song. It's supposed to be something catchy, crowd-pleasing, and danceable, even though the lyrics sing about a man longing for her lover to come back. The reason why this song plays as Natalie walks out of the bathroom is because it acts as her theme song: she likes to have fun, and she's not looking for a serious relationship.

"Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" (again, a sample):

Wasted days and wasted nights,
I have left for you Behind
for you don't belong to me,
your heart belongs to someone else.

Why should I keep loving you,
when I know that you're Not true?
And why should I call your name,
when you're to blame
for making me Blue?

This song starts playing when Cid is rejected by Consuelo. According to the book, he's had a crush on Consuelo "since the day he made her acquaintance, roughly ten years ago." Upon listening to Freddy Fender's performance, it's a slow, but very sentimental song. After reading the lyrics, the reader can conclude that Cid really likes Consuelo, but after ten years of rejection, he's not sure if he should keep pursuing her.

Despite their significance in the story, they're not very deep or introspective songs; they're simple to understand. Even while digging through YouTube, there aren't numerous "versions" or "interpretations" than some of the other songs mentioned in this class. Nonetheless, they are important in character development.

However, this scene's "sense of place" may confuse the reader more than it clarifies. Normally, the character developments are all in the book, and it shouldn't require outside research to get a sense of what's going on. But Martínez inserts these songs assuming the reader knows what she is alluding to. So for those who aren't familiar with mariachi or rockabilly music, they're just titles to a song.

Big Five-Four jukebox

2009-11-07T14:53:00.000-08:00

In the Big Five-Four, the songs "Hey Baby, Que Paso?" and "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" are heard by protagonists Natalie and Sway. Every weekend the girls put on their best outfits and head to the dance hall to flirt with the men and dance the night away. The song "Hey Baby, Que Paso?" is mentioned when Natalie is coming out of the bathroom in the Big Five-Four. After listening to the song, I view it as a very upbeat, flirtatious dancing song. Natalie's character is much like the song; she is a very outgoing person and although she tends to flirt with many men at the Big Five-Four, she is not looking for a serious relationship. When "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" is heard on the jukebox, we have Consuelo being asked to dance by Cal, who "had been sweet on her ever since the day he made her aquaintance". Consuelo plays hard to get and asks him that if she dances with him be better promise that he will enjoy it real well. Consuelo has a very flirtatious personality with men and loves having all of them focus on her. I believe that both of the songs provide a strong sense of place for both characters and show why the girls pick that place to hang out on the weekends. Natalie and Sway are best friends and love to have a good time. The songs that are played at the Big Five-Four somewhat describe the type of place it is. Both songs are dancing songs, and are more flirtatious songs than serious romantic songs. I think that the songs that are played at the Big Five-Four really connect with Natalie and Sway. I think they find a sense of belonging there, they are not looking for serious relationships but do want to have fun with men. However, at the end of the night, they go home with each other. The song "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" really seems to describe Natalie and Sway's friendship, they spend pretty much all day with each other and then "waste" the night together as well. I think the songs provide a sense of place for both characters because they are comfortable with their lifestyle and enjoy flirting with guys, but would rather spend most of their time with each other.

Caramba!

2009-11-02T07:48:00.000-08:00

In an interview with Random House, Nina Marie Martinez claims that the songs on the jukebox at the Big Five-Four provide the reader with "a better sense of place." She goes on to say that as she was writing there was always either mariachi or rockabilly playing in the background. In one early scene at the Big Five-Four, Texas Tornados' "Hey Baby, Que Paso?" plays, followed by Freddy Fender's "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" (pp. 14-15).

Later (p. 49), we learn that April May performs her skating act to Billy Lee Riley's rockabilly hit, "Red Hot," the song actually playing as the Queen begins her routine only to be interrupted by Favy's award-winning rendition of "La Cigarra" (p. 358).

Examining one of these two scenes and listening to the attendant songs, explain how the songs either provide a sense of place or complicate the reader's sense of place. You will need first to describe what "sense of place" means in the scene in particular: what defines the place in question. Then, think about the nature of the songs, how they interact with the "place" you have described/defined, and what that suggests about "place" in general in the novel.

Loteria

2009-10-30T08:42:00.000-07:00

Type: That by which something is symbolized or figured; anything having a symbolic signification; a symbol, emblem

Prototype: The first or primary type of a person or thing; an original on which something is modelled or from which it is derived; an exemplar, an archetype

Archetype: In the psychology of C. G. Jung: a pervasive idea, image, or symbol that forms part of the collective unconscious.

(from the Oxford English

Dictionary Online)

“To us the images of Loteria cards and boards weren’t types but prototypes and archetypes in the nation’s psyche. To play a single game was to traverse the inner chambers of la mexicanidad” (Stavans 27).

It is reported that the game Loteria first gained widespread popularity in Mexico after a shrewd French entrepeneur, Don Clemente Jacques, began distributing boards for the game alongside the canned foods that his company provided for soldiers during the Mexican Revolution. When the dust from the war settled, the soldiers had not forgotten about the game that they had played to while away the hours on the lines of battle, and Jacques had to use “the same press he used to create food labels” (26) just to keep up with demand. And so it is that one of Mexico’s national pastimes grew up alongside one of the most important events in her history.

Appropriately so, I think.

For one thing, the game carries immense social significance: one form of the game, La Loteria Nacional, offers the chance to win riches for the cost of a single peso. The competitive form of the game, meanwhile, acts as a meeting place for family, friends, and neighbors to gather around and socialize while coming up with clever riddles and poetic nuggets to outwit the other players.

However, one of the most profound aspects of the game may be in the images themselves. Each of the cards depicts a vivid illustration of an object or person taken out of Mexican culture. But these pictures can’t be reduced to mere cultural artifacts. They’re not simply representations of what people think of when they think of Mexico. In one interpretation, they are symbols taken out of the Mexican consciousness, ripe with varied signs as to what it means to be Mexican.

Works Cited

Stavans, Ilan "Mexico's Ritual of Chance." Americas 57.1 (2005): 22-27. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 30 Oct. 2009.

La Loteria

2009-10-30T06:40:00.001-07:00

La Loteria is much like the game called "Bingo" popular in America. Unlike bingo, where one has to fill up their tablets according to the random numbers called out, Loteria has cards with illustrations that have different meanings. The illustrations on the cards are of everyday characters (el boracho, el catrin) as well as natural elements (la luna, el perico) and mythical beings (el diablo, la muerte), these illustrations vary from one another.

I remember playing loteria when I was about ten years old. At times I would have to ask my mom what certain cards were and if I could place maize on my card because I didn't know exactly what they meant. Loteria is a game that the whole family can enjoy. I used to play with my grandparents and my parents all the time. We would fill up our cards with maize. We would play during birthday parties or late in the evenings after dinner. At the time when I was playing I would only use one card to fill up with maize while my parents and grandparents paid an extra peso for another card. I was always very competitive when I played because the winner got to keep the money that was placed in a pot before the start of the game. I don't recall winning much, but I always looked forward to the next game.

2009-10-29T20:28:00.000-07:00

Since I was little I can recall playing Lotería around our dinning table after supper. This was truly my favorite time of the day, as friends and family came together creating a small stack of pesos in the middle of the table. Everyone gather, my tíos and tías, cousins, our abuelitos and all the small children in the neighborhood. As long as you had a peso to start with, everybody was welcomed to play. Lotería was an important part of the day, where the women cached up on gossip, men created rivalry, and children lost their yearly savings.

Lotería was first brought to Mexico from Spain in the early 18th century. It was originally played by the wealthy and upper classes but as time progress Lotería evolved into a game played at the traditional fairs and by the upper classes. Loteria is not only a traditional game but a part our culture.

La lotería not only consists of pictures depicting our culture, but it also embraces the dichos and refranes which help us understand how we think and behave within our culture. “Calaquita, sé lo mucho que te gusta bailar, escúchame atenta, un secreto te voy a dar” is the dicho on the number 7 card of the Lotería, which is the one I’ve been playing with since I was 7 years old. This dicho along with the ones embedded on the back of each image and card can be a very valuable source of advice for both young and old. They often reflect the values of a society and record cultural history.

Lotería

2009-10-29T13:21:00.001-07:00

Lotería is a traditional Mexican board game played similarly to Bingo, with beans used as place markers. One person calls out the card (but has to come up with a creative rhyme for the players to figure out), and whoever fills in the spaces on the playing cards first wins.

The images on lotería cards are also considered folk art, depicting popular Mexican figures such as "El Borracho" (The drunkard), "La Calavera" (The skeleton), and "La Chalupa" (The flower boat). Other images on traditional lotería game cards can also include fruits, vegetables, world flags, etc. Nowadays, modern lotería game cards don't show as many Mexican fixtures, but can be a tool to teach Spanish in American schools.

http://www.festivalofmexico.com/loterias.html

Reflection of Culture

2009-10-26T18:44:00.000-07:00

I chose to speak on the daydreaming scene in the banana grove. I also find this one to be particular for two reasons. One i feel he is at the height of his malleability mentally and it is the only one where he is fully conscious throughout his entire daydream.
This part of the book is interesting because i feel it reflects the mentality and historical relationship between Mexicotexans and Anglos. Children at this age do not come up with these specific concepts by themselves, they take in influences from their surroundings. The history of the family that he has been brought up in takes root in a revolutionary ideology. He is being raised by man who participated in this and many men of his community very likely follow the same ideology because of the abuse the endure at the hands of anglos. I think this is an important reflection because at this point we don't see a novel solution or a great leader, we see a repeated process of unsuccessful attempts at destroying an enemy side.
A technique that Peredes uses he is important to understanding the scene as well, he starts to take on almost a first person view to embody the imagination of Gualinto, to make it real. At first Paredes shows us the reality of a boy playing in the banana grove,"The banana trunk was silent, but it seemed to cringe with the passing of a gust of wind," and " perhaps the switching of the last name confounded the banana trunk." Then we see a shift in perspective and enter Gualinto's mind, "...the champion turned to leave the treacherous rinche went for his 44. Gualinto spun around and burried his dagger into the rinche's side..." Here we see the banana tree really come to life and leave the imaginiary status.

George Washington Gomez

2009-10-26T07:56:00.000-07:00

I had no clue this is how this would end. I was disappointed on how Gualinito soon turned to George Washington Gomez a "Gringo" instead of the leader of his race like I envisioned the story to end.

He battled all his life with a checkerboard life and seemed more and more as the story continued that he found his identity "Mexican" and that was where he felt he belonged. I am not sure how this changed because I could not see it coming? It made me think, is this how the Mexican race is now? Do we change our lives because we want a better life than our parents, or do we do it because we are ashamed of what our culture was like? Are we trying to make our parents proud, or do we have a mentality if you can't beat them join them? These are questions I am struggling with after reading this book. Gualinito showed heart and character for all the abuse he took during his school years. His confidence was unbelievable and I admired him in the beginning. The thing I noticed was that he had confidence when it came to him but when his family was being talked about he changed. He could not take that pain that his family was not perfect and started to become ashamed of his life. Why? How can someone be so strong when it came to physical and mental abuse towards himself be so weak to his family's verbal abuse? This is what confuses me about this whole book, that he could not overcome something I saw as trivial versus the difficult obstacles he faced earlier in his life.

I was very disappointed with the end of the book, I had hoped it turned out different. Felicano and his mother did so much for him and this how they were repaid? I was with Felicano on this "Then I could look forward to seeing you father in purgatory or limbo or wherever it is that Mexican yokels go. We could sit down and have a good long talk about you."

George Washington Gomez: Destiny or Doomed Despair

2009-10-26T06:09:00.000-07:00

The passage that struck me the most in the dreaming scene wasn't what he was dreaming about, but his initial thoughts when he woke up. Guanlinto thought, "Goddam ridiculous, having the daydreams of his boyhood come back to him in his sleep. They had helped relieve his bitterness and frustration when he was a boy, those daydreams. " This passage was significant because it seemed like he was still experiencing frustration in his life and his old dreams came back to bring him comfort. As in childhood, he reverted to a fantasy land to make sense of what was going on around him and, in fantasies, he could control his own destiny and make decisions that led to victory. His dreams also seem to be a manifestation of the frustration he still feels in his adult life. He has this name, George Washington Gomez, and this destiny to live up to and to become a great man, but his name is derrided by his father in law when he says, "You look white but you're a goddam Meskin. And what does your mother do but give you a nigger name. George Washington Go-maize." When Ellen goes on to say his father gave it to him in honor of our country’s founding father, and a supposed great leader, his father in law negates Guanlito’s father and, seemingly, his destiny, when he says, “it don't sound right.” I found it very telling that “it was then that he decided to legally change his name to George G. Gómez, the middle G for Garcia, his mother's maiden name.” I think, at that moment, Guanlito decided to cast off the “destiny” cloak that was associated with the “Washington” in his name and embrace who he really is.

The shifts in perspective made the reading more interesting. During the intital battle of San Jacinto, I didn't know at first if Guanlito was fighting on the Mexican side or the American side. I also had a hard time trying to figure out if Guanlito was inside his own head or the head of Santa Ana. Also, when he spoke of living during his great-grandfather's time and organizing fighting militias, making the Colt revolver, hand grenades, and portable mortar, I had a hard time diffrentiating if this was his childhood fantasy speaking, or him reflecting in adulthood. The lack of definitive perspective, the seeking and soul-searching for who he is, and what he is to become, seems to be a recurrent dream that has woven itself through his life. His recurrent dreams of Mexican defeat at the hand of the Gringos indicates some repressed feeling that he and his people have been wronged in the past and that it is still going on in his present.

One of the most powerful passages in the story was, “Why do I keep on fighting battles that were won and lost a long time ago? Lost by me and won by me too? They have no meaning now.” It seems that, even though he is, as he stated, “a grown man, married and with a successful career before him,” the dreams of his youth still haunt him. In his dream, he gathered other repressed people, the Irish and the escaped Negro slaves, and they defeated the American army like David taking down Goliath. Even though he has cast off all aspirations to be a great leader and a powerful commander, even though it would appear that he is done with living up to his great destiny and is ready to live a normal life, his destiny is not done with him.

2009-10-26T05:53:00.000-07:00

Analyze through close-reading one of two dreaming scenes: either Guálinto's daydreaming in the banana tree grove (pp. 66-69) Then select one historical event woven into the scene and explain how that history enables us to make sense of Guálinto/George as a character.
You will need to complete the following steps:

Explicate the scene with careful attention to the movement of the language. Select, for example, a recurring figure, use of punctuation, etc. OR select one or two representative sentences and explain their significance for the passage as a whole
Identify the historical content of that scene (you may want to reference outside sources here; if so, be sure that you either cite or hyperlink them)
Identify what characterizes Guálinto at the respective stages of his emerging identity
Explain how all of these factors coincide to make Guálinto's choices and actions meaningful in the context of the narrative.

"He looked at the damage he had done and he was frightened. He had almost killed the plant." This sentence explain the significance for the passage as whole. He was daydreaming, he realized how he was hurting plant not real people. When he was dreaming, all those words and actions that he explained were very realistic and scary. He was serious in the dream that seemed like real.

"Why don't you try to kill me, eh? Because you shoot people in the back. Because you kill unarmed men and little children. Go back to your camp and tell old man Keene that Guálinto Gómez doesn't kill men who won't fight." He was very brave and fair. He was not afraid to fight and generous to wait for other to fight. He was angry because "

You have killed another Mexican who never hurt you." He heard the story about rinches from family. So that he didn't think they were right and wanted to fight for injustice

and heart for revenge. But in his daydream, at first, he did not start to just fight or kill others."

Guálinto Gómez doesn't kill men who won't fight."

And later he was killing that shows how much he wanted to be stand up for right thing and revenge on rinches for killing Mexicans.

I believe that this scene of daydream is foreshadowing that he will be a big person who would fight for justice like his daydreaming.

Banana Grove Fight

2009-10-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

The scene with Gualinto brutally attacking the banana tree shows much of Gualinto's developing character. When we, as Americans, thing of battles our country fought, we tend to think of two armies marching, with their weapons at their sides, towards the other. Once they reach a meeting point, they acknowledge each other and the person in charge yells "charge". Each army gives it all that they have and the best side wins. From the scene with Gualinto and the banana tree, the Mexican way of fighting is revealed. It seems as though it is more of a guerilla warfare type fight. Throughout the passage the reader gets plenty of imagery, intense action verbs, and similies that give us a clear description of how Gualinto feels. The sentence "He held the killer's gun arm powerless with his left hand as he stabbed sharply, viciously, while his adversary spent his strength in the most titanic but unavailing struggles" helps us see the character of Gualinto and how his experiences or lack thereof have shaped him.

Gualinto refers to two names during his battle with the rinche-tree, he asks for a Apolonio Gonzalez and a Apolonio Rodriguez. From this the reader knows that there are not two Apolonio's, but rather that Gualinto is still a child and innocent. He hears from his family incidents of what rinches have done, but he does not know the facts or the background. It is clear to see that in Gualinto's free time he obsesses with revenge on the rinches for what he thinks they have done, "killed unarmed men and little children". When he finally snaps out of his dream he is frightened at what he has done. He not only worries about getting caught by his mother, but he is also mad at himself for even doing something like that. This shows that he is still child-like even though he has a rage like a vengeful Mexican.

At this point in the novel, the reader may assume that scene forshadows Gualinto's future character. However, it is unclear whether his fear of authority or his vengeance will take over in his character.

Men Between Banana Trees

2009-10-23T06:29:00.000-07:00

In ancient epic warfare, the heroes of two opposing armies would face each other in an open plane, fighting to the death in hand to hand combat surrounded by their respective armies. Though brutal, these fights were public, honorable, vicious, but respectful in that both men acknowledged their war and their weapons up front.

Not so between rinches and vengeful Mexican fighters in banana groves or the chaparral. Guálinto's battle against the rinche/tree on p. 68, however imaginary, childish, and surreptitious is written in the style of an epic battle with vivid, successive action verbs, similes, alliteration contribute to Guálinto's status as "champion" (68) here and make his pretend struggle all the more foreboding.

Though reminiscent of the ancient heroes of Troy, our new hero fights in typical Western/corrido fashion. Paredes writes, "G spun around and burried his daggger into the wretch's side before the gun was half-drawn. Crackslich! The blade sank deep into his pulpy flesh." Not only the verbal imagery clear and concise, the personification of the tree, "a once smooth stalk...[now] a pulpy oozing mess, scratched, stabbed, and cut, with patches of the skin-like bark hanging loose" (68). Not only does this vivid action sequence paint an almost empirical picture of the "fight," but the treatment of the tree as a true rinche who has killed "unarmed men and children" and who will now die at the hands of a fighter defending his people transforms the playtime of a 6-year-old in his backyard into a potential scene of sobering reality and probability.

Surrounding and during the killing scene, Guálinto references three names and two specific crimes that help us locate the historical context of the banana-grove episode. He asks the rinche-tree twice where Apolonio Gonzalez and then Apolonio Rodriguez are. This apparent slip-up by G in identifying their last names is intentional work on Paredes' part - revealing G's innocence and childlike understanding/memory of the specific event. Though he cannot remember the facts perfectly, however, G knows the most pertinent information--a Mexican (or multiple Mexicans) was "shot in the back," killed while unarmed.

Guálinto's apparent ignorance of the historical but acute awareness of the principle (i.e. cold-blooded, racially motivated murder) is crucial in understanding his development as a character. This scene, paradoxically playful and brutal, hopeful and tragic, reveals in part the mind of 6-year-old G. In his play time, Guálinto is obsessed with thoughts of vengeful murder and his inner dialogue about his stained shirt resembles that of a murderer caught with the blood of his victim on his clothes (68). Still, though the boy explodes in a violent range with this historical crime in mind, his age and his timid spirit have not vanished: after "almost killing the plant" he is frightened about more than just getting caught. The very sensation and experience was, somehow, terrifying.

While this murder scene, it would seem, foreshadows G's future work in revenge, it is still unclear at this point in the story whether his sense of vengeance or sense of fear will dominate his psyche in the (likely) chance that he comes upon a rinche who's skin cuts much more easily than bark.

George Washington Gomez: History and Character

2009-10-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

This week we're beginning Paredes' novel, George Washington Gómez, originally written in the 1930s but not published until 1990. Though the novel itself has a very interesting publication history, we will be focusing in this discussion on the relationship between "history"--the narrative's historical context--and the novel form, specifically the Bildungsroman or novel of maturation. In other words, we will examine how history informs Paredes' characterization of George/Guálinto as the novel's hero.
Initiated in Guálinto's naming ceremony and carried throughout George Washington Gómez historical events interweave with narrative events to inform the direction that Guálinto's life will take. In particular, the scenes of Guálinto's daydreams indicate his ever-developing sense of himself in relation to the world around him. Analyze through close-reading one of two dreaming scenes: either Guálinto's daydreaming in the banana tree grove (pp. 66-69) or that in his sleep beginning in Part V (pp. 281-2). Then select one historical event woven into the scene and explain how that history enables us to make sense of Guálinto/George as a character.
You will need to complete the following steps:

Explicate the scene with careful attention to the movement of the language. Select, for example, a recurring figure, use of punctuation, etc. OR select one or two representative sentences and explain their significance for the passage as a whole
Identify the historical content of that scene (you may want to reference outside sources here; if so, be sure that you either cite or hyperlink them)
Identify what characterizes Guálinto at the respective stages of his emerging identity
Explain how all of these factors coincide to make Guálinto's choices and actions meaningful in the context of the narrative.

woman hollering creek

2009-10-09T07:21:00.000-07:00

Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

Saldívar-Hull's Argument does not completely capture what women hollering creek is all about. It does emphasize the social stigma attached to how women are treated it mostly focuses on the bad side of the book. The stories are all different they offer an insight into the author’s soul. Not all the experiences in the book were about women being mistreated. The book personally took me back to my child hood i mean who doesn’t remember as a child being at the church with their grandma that is just something that takes me back. The book talk about Mexican folklore some of their believes such as santito and milagros brujos and hechiceria that is just simply how Mexican live under superstition and to take this and impose it to tie it into feminism and machismo is just not correct. Although she does write about female situation that denote their subjugation to another person by physically or emotionally this should not be assigned to all Mexican women. That type of machista behavior should not be assigned to Mexican men only and cause the assumption that they all are the same because it is not true.
I believe this book goes way beyond creating a strong female image because it relates those life situations that shape you into who you are, which should emphasize that one shouldn’t settle for what they have but go look for their dreams and their happiness.

Cleofila's dream life

2009-10-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

Cleofila is a typical woman who dreams about her marriage, husband, and romantic life. Cleofia is a chicana woman and she came to Seguin, Texas with her husbnad. She was going for romantic marriage life like other white woman there. But her husband abuse her.

"He slapped her once, and then again, and again; until lip split and bled an orchid of blood, she didn't fight bak, she didn't break into tears, she didn't run away as she imagined she might when she saw such things in the telenovelas"

She held it herself. She didn't want to break the marriage although it was not right. She tries to make it better.

"Not that he isn't a good man. She has to remind herself why she loves him when she changes the baby's papers, or when she mops the bathroom floor, or tries to make the curtain for the doorways without doors, or whiten the linen."

She doesn't give up her wife role. She does house work at home, tries to remind herself why she loves him. She knows that this life wouldn't change to life she dreamed. But she keeps her white feminisms and endure the life. She always think back the life before marriage but she can't leave her husband because her husband helps support their child. She struggles like other woman in America.

"Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

Saldivar's Argument

2009-10-09T06:53:00.000-07:00

Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

I would have to agree with Hull's argument in that all the elements shown above can be seen throughout the book. The sexual, racial, geopolitical emerge from the characters own experiences, which are based on Cisneros's own experiences as a working class woman of color from the borderlands of greater Mexico. The text problematize dichotomy between gender conditions in the US and those in Mexico by combinding the two cultures and countries in the rural Texas town of Seguin.

WHC is one outcome of Cisneros commitment to popular feminism. The story ideological manipulation through mass media, such as telenovelas, collude to keep women submissive.

Saldívar-Hull's Argument

2009-10-09T06:43:00.001-07:00

I think Saldívar-Hull's Argument is a good summary for what “Women Hollering Creek” is about as a whole. Particularly the claim that it “decenters white feminism and destabilized class assumptions”. In the story we see how Cleofilas is completely worn down and subjugated by the abusive relationship she is in. We get a first hand account of the struggles that a typical Mexican-American women would have to face, and this kind of perspective was drowned out by white feminism or simply overlooked due to racism. Sandra Cisneros attempts to bring to light the domestic plight that Mexican-American women had to face, perhaps to provide them a voice, or show that the Mexican and White women had to face the same kind of struggles. Because white feminism overshadowed minority womens rights, I think the piece “decenters” the white feminism dominance and shows Mexican-American women perhaps had it even harder, considering they were not only fighting against sexism, but racism as well.
Also, the claim that it destabilized class assumptions is expressed when we consider that situation that Cleofilas and her husband are in. Living in the border region of the United States which was ripe with racism and inequality. In my opinion, Cisneros is trying to show how Mexican couples and White couples are similar in that they both must work and raise children, but in the details we also note the air of racism that they must live under. I think that because Mexican-Americans were regarded as second class citizens, perhaps the dominant class did not really take notice at the wide array of relationship problems and abuse that is not just a thorn in White society, but something that is prevalent in all societies.

Chicana Feminism Within Woman Hollering Creek

2009-10-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

In Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" she "fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions." Within the argument, she states that, "Cisneros makes it clear that Cleófilas' migration to patriarchal domesticity and the north is not the product of a singular engagement with "romantic" constructions of marriage, but of a lifelong engagement with media representations (the books, the songs and the telenovelas) that define and ultimately discipline women's passions." I don't particularly agree with the assertion that she makes, though. Cleófilas goes north for practical reasons: her husband works and lives there. I also believe that Cleófilas goes into marriage with a both a dreamer's and a pragmatist's attitude about marriage. She understands the domesticity of it: she's been carrying out the functions of "wifely" duties for many years now. She understands the tradition of maintaining home and hearth as they have been drummed into her, even without a mother figure to teach her.

While, I support Saldívar-Hull's assertion that Cleófilas has been surrounded by images of what love is on the telenovelas and in magazines, I also believe that she romanticizes love in that manner because didn't have a loving relationship to learn and grow from. Her mother died and there is no mention of a stepmother, so she doesn't have a real life, practical model to learn the ways of what happens between a woman and a man, so she gleans this "knowledge" of all encompassing, all consuming love from the examples that she does have: fiction. Like any young woman, she has an idealistic view of what marriage will be like and, like each person that goes into the unknown, there is always the possibility that your expectations of a situation will not live up to the reality.

When the blinders are removed and Cleófilas sees her circumstance for what it is, she goes along with the only other option that presents itself and returns home. She has no money or home in the U.S. without her husband, she doesn’t have any training or prospects to get a job, and she has two children to provide for. I support Cleófilas' decision to return home. Yes, it is returning to a "patriarchal domesticity" as Saldívar-Hull puts it, but at least in her father's house she won't be physically abused.

Telenovelas

2009-10-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

In this article, one of the arguments that Saldivar makes is that mass media, such as telenovelas shape women's conciousness and delimit their knowledge of the world. She uses several example from the short story Woman Hollering Creek to support her. Cleofilas does indeed compare her life a few time to telenovelas, but she is struck by reality when she realizes that her marriage will not have a happy ending. I do agree that women, not only Mexican women are influenced very much by stories such as telenovelas. Many american women grow up listening to fairy tales where young girls are rescued from their awful lives by Prince Charming. These fairy tales and telenovelas do impact us a lot, but I don't believe that they "shape our conciousness." Cleofilas did wish for her life to be like the telenovelas, but don't we all at some point expect a Prince Charmig? Telenovelas are simply made for enternainment, and I do not believe they delimit Mexican's women,or Cleofilas knowledge of the world. Cleofilas simply expected a happy marriage and was let down, just like all the other divorced women all over the world.

Chicana feminism on Woman Hollering Creek

2009-10-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

Sonia Saldívar makes the argument that “Woman Hollering Creek” “fictionally articulates feminism [which] simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.” To support her argument she infers that after Cleófilas leaves her husband and returns to Mexico, she has transformed into a new woman, “the agent of alternative visions” thus converting her into the new Chicana feminist pioneer. Saldívar assumes that Cleófilas will liberate herself from the oppressive world of men by telling her family the story of Felice, the story of a new type of woman.

In my opinion, I believe it will take more than Cleófilas “hollering” her story, to liberate her. Returning to Mexico, positions her back to the role she had before, the role she wanted to escape when she got married and moved north. Instead of staying in the United States and establishing herself as an independent woman, with the help of Felice of course, Cleófilas decides to move back, to run away, defenseless to the Third World, a place known for its exploitation and dominance on women.

This inevitable cycle presented by Cisneros, does not show a woman who can stand up for herself, who dares to shout instead of hollering. With this is mind, Cleófilas can not be a symbol of Chicana feminism, but another victim in a patriarchal society.

Analyzing Seguin's Argument

2009-10-08T22:04:00.000-07:00

"Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

One crucial element of Seguin's argument lies in this passage where she describes Cleofilas' context and already interprets her significance as a "border" character as it relates to the Chicana feminism she will come to represent:

"WHC" also problematizes an unacceptable dichotomy that US scholars often inscribe between gender conditions in the US and those in Mexico...This is a story in which Cleofilas, a young Mexican woman, moves from one Third World patriarchal context to another with the hope of escaping economic limitations and fulfilling romantic illusions. In Cleofilas' migrations Cisneros suggests that the material and gendered conditions of domination and exploitation imposed on subaltern Mexican women in the US are connected to the exploitation and domination from which they seek to escape in the pueblos/towns of Mexico" (449).

Already, Cleofilas is "decenterizing predominantly white feminisms" by articulating the struggles of a Mexican woman in an Anglo world where she is fighting similar, but not identical, struggles against a patriarchy that persists in both economic worlds. Seguin's claim that Cleofilas' moving from one "Third World patriarchal context to another with the hope of escaping economic limitations and fulfilling romantic illusions" is central to her argument that Cleofilas feminism crosses the borders of both race and economic class and presents a feminism that flows through both boundaries.

Woman Hollering Creek

2009-10-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

I did not quite understand the argument being made, so I will try my best at providing a claim for it. The quote from the text that stands out the most to me is: "Like other Mexican women who regularly watch Spanish "novels" in the US and Mexico, Cleofilas is totally immersed within a fully mediatized culture witch instructs young women that their goal in life is marriage, adn that marriage to a US citizen is synonymous with social mobility and unbridled consumerism". From this quote it I get the impression that from watching television, reading romantic novels, flipping through various magazines, or the gossip around the town, some Mexican women make it their goal to marry an American. From what they hear, see, or read, they believe that they will encounter the best lives if they marry into an American family. However, based on the story that is told in Woman Hollering Creek, Cleofilas does not end up experiencing the life that she dreamed of. I also find it interesting that Cisneros names Cleofilas American neighbors Soledad and Dolores, meaning solitude and pain. Even though they are American, they still got stuck in the "media" idea of what the life of a woman should be like. Throughout the entire text there is no mention of the class system, the writing is solely based on the feminist aspect for the Mexican woman; the crossing over to a country where life is supposed to be better and bring happiness, but for some end up being the opposite and worse than what was being experienced back home. I know I am not going in the right direction at all, I am very confused about what to write or the point that I am even trying to make. I understand the story, but the argument is what is confusing me.

Woman Hollering...

2009-10-05T06:44:00.000-07:00

For this blog discussion, we're temporarily departing from our usual close analysis of the fiction to turn our sights on literary criticism. As we modeled in class with our analysis of Dr. Limón's reading of "I Am Joaquín," you will use your blog discussion to analyze Sonia Saldívar-Hull's "Woman Hollering Transfronteriza Feminism."
The OED defines "analysis" as:

1. The resolution or breaking up of anything complex into its various simple elements, the opposite process to synthesis; the exact determination of the elements or components of anything complex (with or without their physical separation).

The task of analyzing a critical piece such as Saldívar-Hull's then relies on taking the argument apart in order to determine how she arrives at her argument. With that in mind, I'll offer the following as a summary of her argument, and in your posts, you will either offer at least one claim that she uses to back up this argument OR identify what you think the argument is, how it diverges from the summary I've offered, and, again, at least one claim that supports that reasoning.

Saldívar-Hull's Argument: "Woman Hollering Creek" fictionally articulates a Chicana feminism that simultaneously decenters predominantly white feminisms and destabilizes class assumptions.

Remember: Identify at least one claim and explain how it works to structure the argument.

"Nostalgia"

2009-09-28T07:46:00.001-07:00

On Friday, we'll be reading "The Ghost of John Wayne" and, if we have time, Oscar Casares' "Yolanda." Both of those stories deal with nostalgia in different ways. In preparation for that discussion (to be led by Jessica), look up the word "nostalgia" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Comment on this post with the definitions you find, including the etymology. How do those definitions relate to the historical, cultural, and/or maturation narratives we find here?

The New Mestiza

2009-09-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

According to the OED "mestizo/mestiza" is a person of mixed origin; originally a man with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother. Throughout chapter seven Anzaldua claims an indigenous background and cultural connections to that past. I particularly liked Anthony's reference to the caste system established by the Europeans during their conquest of the new world. I feel that Anzaldua sees definite similarities between the first conquest of America and the assimilation she suffered in her life as a chicana in the United States. What Anzaldua is doing is redefining the term mestiza as a source of empowerment instead of discrimination.
"Indigenous like corn, like corn, the mestiza is a product of crossbreeding, designed for preservation under a variety of conditions. Like an ear of corn-a female seed-bearing organ-the mestiza is tenacious, tightly wrapped in the husks of her culture. Like kernels she clings to the cob; with thick stalks and strong brace roots, she holds tight to the earth-she will survive the crossroads."
It is interesting that in reclaiming the term mestiza identifies with a living being that Natives of the region used for centuries for survival. She sees the durability of corn in her own ability to handle oppressive cultures. By "clinging to the earth" she can survive. By staying close to her culture, the universal culture of being a woman/poet/lesbian/chicana, she survives pressures that normally would not stand up to the tears between so many cultures. I think here i can agree that she breaks the "ethnic" terms of mestiza and claims a "cultural" one.

Borderlands/La Frontera

2009-09-25T06:49:00.000-07:00

The Oxford English Dictionary’s official website gives “mestiza” the definition of: a person of mixed origin; originally a man with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother.

The definition that is portrayed by Anzaldua is loosely similar to the one given by the OED, but also, in many respects very different. It differs by, first of all, being more broadened to also encompass American decent as well as Indian and Mexican. And secondly, a feeling of being "lost" in between these different ancestries. Being of mixed ancestries she doesn't have one single land or culture that she can completely identify with or be completely acepted by.

One passage i feel describes this idea of "mestiza" is,
"So, don't give me your tenets and your laws. Don't give me your lukewarm gods. What i want is an accounting with all three cultures-white, Mexican, and Indian. I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails. And if going home is denied me then i will have to stand and claim my space, making a new culture-una cultura mestiza-with my own lumber, my own bricks, and mortar and my own feminist architecture.
I feel that this passage really show her definition of "mestiza," becuase it shows that she has no real belonging to any of the specific cultures and instead of trying to belong to one, would rather be considered her own culture.

Mestiza

2009-09-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

Mestiza means people who were born under Spanish father and Indian mother. They have mixed in racial. I believe the bad situation about the Mestiza is belongingess. I want to use the word "border" like how Gloria Anzaldua described in the book. It could mean seperates the country but Mestiza doesnt really mean seperating country. But I believe that person would feel that she is on the middle of two races and cultures. Which can be very ambigous in two differnt sides of the mixed origin.

In the book"borderland" by Gloria Anzaldua, she's suffering with her identity.

"The US-Mesican border es una herida abierta where the Third World grates against the first and bleed. And before a scab form it hemorrhages again, the lifeblood of two worlds merginging to form a third country, a border culture."

Anzuldua described Mestiza as a border-third country because of the mixed between two different cultures. And from the quote explains that to live as a Mestiza is so hard and hurt like bleeding. This quote just explains her situation of Mestiza in the book. I feel so pain and hard reading this qutoe.

I felt like that too when I came to America. It was hard like bleeding but I'm pretty sure suffer that I have is different then the book. Even though it's so hard, I have my definite origin. I have my country to go back after studying and keep my culutre proudly. However I feel bad for being Mestiza but amazing how she make a great story of her life in this book.

La Nueva Mestiza

2009-09-25T06:19:00.001-07:00

According to the OED, a “mestiza” is a person of mixed origin. Originally this term referred in particular to a female with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother. As Anzaldua begins to sketch her "new mestiza," this more specific definition of a Chicano daughter of mixed heritage begins to blur and we are introduced to a women who's mixed cultural, sexual, and historical understandings of self compose a more fluid "mestiza" identity that is not just a reference to mixed race.

In her initial recounting of Chicano history, Anzaldua initially refers to the masculine "mestizos...genetically equipped t survive" the diseases carried by 16th century colonists into Mexico (27). During this historical narrative, she seems to proudly identify with the mestizos who explored and conquered most of the southwest and explains how the "continual intermarriage between Mexican and American Indians and Spaniards formed an even greater mestizaje" of mixed blood (27). But in chapter 2, she moves from a nostalgic recollection of cultural heritage into a description of the "cultural tyranny" that she feels, not only Anglos, but mestizos themselves impose upon mixed-heritage, Chicana women like herself -- mestizas.

These mestizas are feared as "carnal, animal, and closer to the undivine" (39) by the men in their cultures who chose to "protect" them rather than let them guide their culture. In the author's cuture, "men make the rules and laws; women transmit them" (38). A lingering tribal value of welfare of the community over the individual (40) makes standing out against accepted cultural norms and gender roles nearly impossible as one who "get above themselves" is labeled selfish or envidiosa (40).

But the "superhuman" in every new mestiza cannot truly be confined. Anzaldua begins to show us this new "mixed-woman" through the metaphor of "the Shadow-beast" who is, fundamentally, a rebel. Not only does she rebel against misogynistic culture, however, she rebels against her own self-limitations and the "absolute despot duality that says we are able to be only one of the other" (41). The Shadow-Beast in the new mestiza is "a part [of me] that refuses to take orders from outside authorities. It refuses to take orders from my conscious will...it is the part [of me] that hates constraints of any kind, even those self imposed" (41).

For the author, "the ultimate rebellion" the new mestiza "can make against her native culture is through her sexual behavior" (41). Whether straying from normal heterosexual constructs or farther into the "prohibited" homosexuality, this rebel can embrace multiple sexual identities as well as multiple cultural identifications.

Regardless of the specific norms or dualities that the new mestiza represents, defines, or breaks forcefully, she is a product of a false border. She defies the "borders that are et up to define the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them" (25). As she boldly claims the various identities which she herself discovers, she moves form the "vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary" (25). By challenging "the confines of the normal" the nueva mestiza embraces the borders that formed her and surpasses their limitations, actively engaging in and transforming her culture and claiming the heritage she calls her own.

Borderlands/La Frontera

2009-09-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Mestiza: When we look at the literal meaning, Mestiza is used to describe a person of mixed decent, usually of European and American Indian blood. This term was coined around the late 1500's and early 1600's, around the time the Spanish ruled over Central America. They developed a caste system which separated the people into different classes based on their racial characteristics. A Mestizo is someone who is the offspring of a European and American Indian or the offspring of two Mestizo parents. When we examine the differences between the literal definition and Anzaldua's take on the term, we must remember that Ms. Anzaldua says “New Mestiza” in her title. I think the “New” part is very important because she is not talking about Mestiza in the context of the Spanish caste system, she is referring to Mexican-American women of today. While Anzaldua was growing up, she struggled with her identity because she didn't want to take the mantle of the traditional sub-servant female. "She has this fear that she has no names… that she has many names…that she doesn't know her names." (Anzaldua 65). The author is attempting to re-define what her identity is and the role of Mexican-American women who have survived and thrived along the border region of Mexico and America. The women who lived in that region were forced to adapt to new cultures and challenges, it was necessary for the “Mestiza Consciousness” to adapt as well to cope with the new challenges they faced.

Borderlands/La Frontera

2009-09-25T04:48:00.000-07:00

Found in the OED, a “mestiza” is a person of mixed origin; originally a woman with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother.

In Borderlands/La Frontera Anzaldua is describing the complexity of being a new Mestiza. To label yourself as a new Mestiza you are automatically expressing multitudes of races, cultural and ideological terms into this one word. You can think of it as a contradiction within itself. Because as a Mestiza you do not belong to one category but intertwine with a range of others. However, this does not bring absolute acceptance. A Mestiza has indigenous ancestry but also shares current civilization blood and traditions. She is ambiguous and has no actual place she can call home. She spends her time trying to figure out who she is, where she belongs and how she got in this current situation.

In La Conciencia de la Mestiza: Towards a new Consciousness, Anzaldua is clearly describing herself in this passages she identifies herself as a lesbian, a feminist and a women. I love the sentence in parenthesis because it’s such a great example of one of the many categories a Mestiza can identify with:
“As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.” Just like a lesbian not being accepted by her own people and or other races Mestizas to form an overall race that other women can relate to. Like many other non Latin American places there are plenty of other women that deal with this multicultural conflict.

"Ethnic" Mestiza vs. "Cultural" Mestiza

2009-09-24T23:47:00.000-07:00

The "mestiza" is the product of the "mestizaje", in which the children's ethnic makeup is blended from their parents' ancestry. "Mestiza" is the female form of "mestizo", originally understood as: "a man with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother;" but is now understood to mean: "a person of mixed American Spanish and American Indian descent."

In the context of Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa links her self-identification of a mestiza to being at a crossroads, not only in the matters of race, but where her cultural identity stands as being virutally nonexistent under the Anglo hierarchy (which had, in turn, affected Mexican hierarchy). In other words, she assigns different definitions for "ethnic" mestiza and "cultural" mestiza.

As an ethnic mestiza, she still believes that the only solution from being exiled is to create a new culture. In the eyes of her motherland (and its inhabitants), she is worthless, nonexistent, "cultureless". But Anzaldúa sees herself as otherwise, proving her worth by "participating in the creation" of her mestiza culture.

"(R)evolution works out the clash of cultures. It makes us crazy constantly, but if the center holds, we've made some kind of revolutionary step forward."

And like any culture, it is a building block upon other cultures beneath it:

Indigenous like corn, like corn, the mestiza is a product of crossbreeding, designed for preservation under a variety of conditions. Like an ear of corn--a female seed-bearing organ--the mestiza is tenacious, tightly wrapped in the husks of her culture. Like kernels she clings to the cob; with thick stalks and strong brace roots, she holds tight to the earth--she will survive the crossroads.

Anzaldúa describes mestiza as indigenous, meaning that it is only natural for this culture to be cultivated within the confines of Mexican culture. By giving birth to culture, she is free to contribute meanings and images that are relevant and pay homage to its ancestors, much like how the ethnic mestiza was created.

2009-09-24T22:14:00.000-07:00

Borderlands/ La Frontera

The New Mestiza

According to the Oxford English Dictionary’s official website a “mestiza” is a person of mixed origin; originally a man with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother. When Christopher Columbus first disembarked in the new world in 1492, he discovered a world populated by indigenous people, described as “uncivilized” and “exotic.” Decades later, with the arrival of Spanish conquerors, the indigenous race was violently vanished from the world, and a new race began to flourish. It is written in our history that the first mestizo in America was the son conceived by Hernan Cortes and Malitzin.

In her book Borderlands/ La frontera, Gloria Anzaldua destroys the image of a mestiza along with every convention and definition that has been imposed to her, and recreates a new identity and meaning. This new mestiza, as described by Anzaldua, is “the coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference.” She is tolerable, has dual personality, and learns to coexist between two opposite worlds. She is the Virgen de Guadalupe and la Malinche, the good and the bad, she is everything and nothing.

“As a mestiza I have no country, my homeland cast me out; yet all countries are mine because I am every women’s sister or potential lover. (As a lesbian I have no race, my own people disclaim me; but I am all races because there is the queer of me in all races.) I am cultureless because, as a feminist, I challenge the collective cultural/religious male-derived beliefs of indo-Hispanics and Anglos; yet I am cultured because I am participating in the creation of yet another culture.

In this passage Anzaldua, describes the necessity of the new mestiza to become neutral, universal, a person who can be turned into different directions, someone who can be everything at once, and at the same time be nothing.

Borderlands/La Frontera

2009-09-24T14:57:00.000-07:00

Mestiza: A woman of mestizo descent. The word mestizo means a person of mixed European and non-European parentage or any person of mixed racial origin, example: a man with a Spanish father and an American Indian mother. From all of the descriptions having to do with mestiza, mestizo, or mestizaje the key characteristics I found were that each word is defined as a person that has Spanish heritage mixed with another heritage.

Anzaldua uses the word "mestiza" for meaning "caught between". Anzaldua is caught between the borderlands physically and spiritually. Her definition of the word mestiza can be somewhat similar to the OED definition. Many times a person of mixed races can feel caught between the two. They may have trouble figuring out which race they identify more with. This is similar to Anzaldua's definition of mestiza because the person is caught between two different cultures. The definitions are different because Anzaldua uses the word mestiza more as a feeling or state of mind rather than a description of an actual person.

The passage that conveys Anzaldua's meaning of the word "mestiza" the best is:

" The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity. She learns to be an Indian in Mexican culture, to be Mexican from an Angle point of view. She learns to juggle cultures. She has plural personality, she operates in a pluralistic mode - nothing is thrust out, the good the bad and the ugly, nothing rejected, nothing abandoned. Not only does she sustain contradictions, she turns the ambivalence into something else. "

This passage is a good definition of what the a mestiza is to Anzaldua. It shows that the mestiza is caught between two different cultures and has to accept the fact that she has to constantly change to fit in with those cultures.

Borderlands/La Frontera

2009-09-21T07:34:00.000-07:00

This week, we're reading Gloria Anzaldúa's foundational work, Borderlands/La Frontera with attention to its genre shifting, self-reflexivity, cultural and identity politics, and/or its relationship to queer theory. Yes, all of those things and quite a few more are working/playing in this text, which is in part what makes it so beautiful and difficult.
As an entry point into the formal structure of this work and its relationship to the overall meaning, I would like you to begin the exercise for this week by looking up the word "mestiza" in the OED Online. Follow the etymological trail to the word's origins and related terms (i.e., mestizo, mestizaje), and identify key characteristics of the term. Then, explain how the definitions you encounter in the OED differ from those offered by Anzaldúa. (You will, of course, need to summarize or define how the author uses the term.)
Finally, identify a passage (either prose or poetry) that most directly encompasses Anzaldúa's conception of "mestiza" and explain why.

2009-09-04T07:46:00.000-07:00

This is what your "Guadalupe la Chinaca" posts remind me of:

2009-08-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Blog Discussion 1: Américo Paredes Folk Poetry

We're talking this week about Américo Paredes' poetry. In addition to being a poet, fiction-writer, and folklore scholar, Paredes was also a musician. The music in his own poetry comes across in its formal characteristics, in the sounds and rhythms of the language. As you'll hear on the podcast for Friday, September 4th, how poetry is recited affects its meanings just as much as how it looks on the page.

For this blog discussion, I would like you to select one of the poems we will discuss in class (either "The Mexico-Texan," "To Mexico," "Guadalupe La Chinaca," or "The Rio Grande") and choose a line that you think best encapsulates the meaning of the poem.
Explain (1) What you think "the" meaning of the poem is, (2) how that particular line comes to express or convey that meaning, and (3) why this line in particular comes to capture that meaning more than any other line.
As you write, you'll need to think about the following:

Where does a line begin or end? Is it demarcated by its visual layout, by punctuation, or by sonic/phonic markers?
What are the denotations and connotations of each word in the line? How do those words draw on those of other lines or on pervasive imagery/figures throughout the poem?
Is there an identified speaker in the line? How does the presence or absence of a speaking persona inflect the line's significance?
Does the line express an irony or tension that occurs throughout or tends to dominate the poem?

Remember to emphasize the depth of your response and feel free to take advantage of the possibilities the blogging medium affords.

Welcome!

2009-08-21T11:36:00.001-07:00

Many of you may already be familiar with blogs, and you may have certain assumptions about their function. The objectives of this blog are threefold: first, it provides a space wherein I can pose questions about the reading to which you will thoughtfully respond; second, because it is a public space where all members of our class community can read your ideas, insights, and analyses, it fosters community and creates public accountability (in addition to the fact that I will be commenting on your posts, we will use them as the basis for discussion in class); third, it allows you to take advantage of a medium with possibilities far beyond those of traditional print media. The mode(s) of composition you use in your blog posts, therefore, more directly relate to how you see yourself as a composer. So, in response to the readings, will you use additional audio-visual media? Will you highlight words that are important to how you read? Will you include links to articles or websites that you're talking about in your post? The blog affords all of these possibilities.

Details of the "Blog Discussion" assignment:
There are a total of five formal posts required over the course of the semester. You will find the "due" dates on your syllabus, but each prompt is flexible enough so that you can write the post on any day leading up to the due date, but not past it. Posts are due by the beginning of class on the appointed day.
One aim of the assignment is to build on the tools we're developing in class (poetic analysis, close reading, historical and cultural analysis, etc.) so that you have strong foundation for your final paper. As such, I will be looking for deep analyses that address the questions I pose and demonstrate fluency with the techniques involved in literary analysis, techniques that we will have modeled in class discussions. The aim is to go for depth rather than breadth; as such, I expect each post to be no fewer than 250 and no more than 500 words.

Details of the OED exercises:
In an effort to familiarize you with some of the research tools and databases available through the University Library's website and to introduce you to the historicity and richness of language, you will use the Oxford English Dictionary Online to look up integral words throughout the semester. This is part of your participation grade in the course, and each OED Exercise will form part of the day's discussion. The blog is a space to post and/or comment on definitions you find and surprising, notable, or interesting aspects of those definitions.