Making the Invisible Visible

In his famous poem, Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100, Martin Espada draws our attention to the kitchen workers who lost their lives in the attack on the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.

Bless Me, Ultima - Composing the Chicano World View

In his fiction Rudolpho Anaya has undertaken "a quest to compose the Chicano literary world view"(Olmos 40). Looking at his first and best-know novel, Bless Me, Ultima, through this lens we see a world view grounded in the families, traditions, and values of the northern New Mexican landscape. Through the interaction of his title character, a curandera named Ultima, and his child protagonist, Antonio Marez, he has woven together indigenous and Spanish traditions in the context of a community that is self-contained, although it is subject to an Anglo power structure. However, in this novel Anaya's focus is not on the clash of Anglo and Hispanic cultures, nor is it on the borders. Rather, it is on the unfolding of a story in a setting where every character is part of the Latino New Mexican community. Within this community he explores complex tensions and diverse points of view. The realities of the Anglo setting--the participation of sons in World War II, the school taught in English--impinge on the characters, but their characters are fully formed by their own cultural landscape.

Bless Me, Ultima is also portrays a traditional community in transition. The Marez and Luna family fight over whether Antonio will represent one or the other in his way of life. But in truth, both ways of life are disappearing. Antonio's mother persuades her family to move to the town of Guadelupe because she understands that Antonio needs to go to school. But she cannot face what it might mean for her boy to grow up and be a man. To preserve his "innocence," or at least the special qualities she discerns in him, she urges him to become a priest. His father, devoted to the freedoms of the vaquero lifestyle he has left behind, insists that Antonio will grow up to make his own decision. But in post World War II New Mexico, he will come of age in a world that neither of his parents can yet imagine.

Although much in New Mexico has changed since the 1940s that Anaya portrays--including the use of Northern New Mexico as test sites for atomic bombs--the indigenous culture still persists and curanderas are still around. The curandera was originally an indigenous healer, but Spanish settlers quickly incorporated this health care practice in their societies. It is possible that some folk healing practices from Spain were incorporated with indigenous healing traditions, as every culture has its folk healers. In Desert Pilgrim, Mary Swander writes a memoir of a healing journey to New Mexico in which she encountered both a curandera and an orthodox priest who contributed to her recovery from a debilitating spinal injury.

Because it has been a popular book in schools since its publication in 1972, there are many internet resources on Bless Me, Ultima. It was also a selection of The Big Read. See some of these resources below.

Resources and interview with Anaya about his desire to document in fiction the spirit of a way of life that was disappearing.

Resouces from the University of New Mexico, including links to several critical articles from peer-reviewed journals.

Bless Me Ultima is also #75 on the American Library Association's list of Banned Books. Read about it on the blog Pluma Fronteriza.

It also appears that a movie based on the book is in production, but not yet released.

Works Cited

Olmos, Margarite Fernandez. "Historical and Magical, Ancient and Contemporary: The World of Rudolfo A. Anaya's Bless Me, Ultima." In U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers. Ed. Harold Augenbraum and Margarite Fernandez Olmos. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. 39-54.

Thoughts from MLK, Jr. Day at Goshen College

On Monday January 16, 2012, Goshen College held its annual MLK,Jr. Study Day. One of the events was a public interview with Dr. Vincent Harding, a historian and colleague of Dr. King. Dr. Harding has been a visitor at Goshen College numerous times. He is a former Mennonite pastor and knows Mennonites and our campus well.

Photo is from pilgrimpathways.wordpress.com

He was asked to speak about our goal of building a multicultural community. Some of this things he said are relevant to our study and discussion of Latino Literature. Below I have paraphrased part of the conversation from my notes:

Q: What does it mean to have an intercultural campus?

VH: A community in which we are encouraged to share our uniqueness. A community built of many communities whose goal is to create something new together.

Q: Will opening too wide to others cause us to lose our (Mennonite) identity?

VH: Identity is not of much value to us when we are grasping onto it too tightly, but rather when we use it as a basis for engaging others. Live is about metamorphosis. If the caterpillar refused to be anything but a caterpillar, it would lose its chance to fly.

Q: What is your definition of servant leadership?

VH: Leadership is something that is always in process of developing. King became a pastor and a Ph.D. to be a "leader," but he only truly began to lead when he began listening to the people who shared his vision and listening to how they wanted to be led.

Harding ended by answering several questions he had been asked earlier, on paper.

He emphasized the role of women in the Civil Rights movement, a vital component that is too often overlooked on MLK,Jr. Day.

He insisted that Christians cannot take Jesus seriously without looking for society's outcasts and standing by their side.

And he spoke of freedom as a process that we live into. He quoted a South African he has once heard on the radio say, "I am a citizen of a country that does not yet exist." He adapted this saying to inspired us with the vision that "We are citizens of a country that we are still in the process of creating."

The March on Washington. Photo found on desertpeace.wordpress.com

"Knowledge has always been dangerous . . ." --Sor Juana de la Cruz

In the United States of America, as we speak, books that would encourage Mexican American students to understand themselves and their cultural heritage are being removed, by law, from Tucson, Arizona's Mexican American studies curriculum. Ethnic Studies have been banned in Arizona public schools by a controversial anti-immigration state law, HB 2281. The result is the removal of a large number of books from the classroom--including Paulo Friere's famous The Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Shakespeare' The Tempest--because it might lead to discussions of race! A recent article in Salon.com compares this book-banning measure to similar actions in South Africa during Apartheid.

Sor Juana de la Cruz was criticized for reading such freethinkers as Erasmus. Now children in Tucson, Arizona are not only being deprived of Shakespeare's classic play, written in response to the settling of the New World, but are also being deprived of a curriculum that would foster their identity and offer all students a broader, more accurate representation of history.

But wait! American ingenuity--Latino ingenuity--arises.

You've heard of wetbacks--now we've got "wet books" in a program to smuggle banned books back into Arizona from . . . Texas!

Librotraficante.com

More on the TUSD ban of books associated with the Mexican American Studies curriculum. As one respondent points out, it's not just a ban on Mexican American authors, but also on Native American authors.

Contemporary Connections with the Plight of Sor Juana de la Cruz

I enjoyed reading your blogs on early Latino literature and your passionate responses to the film, I, the Worst of All. Most of you were shocked at the sexism in the film, never having experienced this in your own lives. A few of you dug a bit deeper into family history and found that there was, in the recent past, some prohibition against women preachers in your churches.

One thing no one mentioned is the systematic discrimination against women in many parts of the Islamic world today. Islam is not inherently a sexist religion, any more than Christianity is, but religions are interpreted by human beings and human institutions. During times when people seek to reinforce hierarchies and consolidate power, sexist hierarchies also tend to be reinforced.

Image from Surghar Daily.



For instance, in areas where the Taliban is active, women are highly repressed today. In Afghanistan, women a generation ago were educated and served as doctors and professors. According to a book entitled My Forbidden Face, written by a woman who escaped from Afghanistan, under the Taliban women were not allowed to see male doctors, and no female doctors were allowed to practice, thereby leaving women devoid of medical care. Inside closed walled, women who were no longer allowed to participate in society, practice their careers, or be educated formed circles of support for each other. However, in war-torn parts of the world where family honor is invested in the purity of its females, rape is often used as a weapon and the woman is disowned by her family as "tainted." Because of this ideology, women are treated as property and isolated and rejected--sometimes even killed-- by the families who should protect them and support them. Women in such communities who are raped and are able to hide the fact dare not ask for help or treatment for fear of
their lives.

Those of us who have never experienced sexism have lived in social settings created by people who have worked hard to eradicate it. However, I sometimes feel that we take for granted the strides for women's equality made in the past century, even the past 30 years. Machismo is an ideology prevalent in Latino culture, but it is certainly not the only culture in which forms of male dominance are practiced.

We will find in Latino literature many examples of strong women, and many of the writers are female. However, let's stay aware of gender dynamics, as well as the interlocking systems of oppression that tend to reinforce each other. Portrayals of such systems can serve as windows and mirrors, as well as reminders that people who experience oppression often internalize it, thereby limiting their own potential.

I wonder whether part of Sor Juana's breakdown at the end of the film was caused by her having gradually internalized the negative critiques that surrounded her, particularly as they were mirrored back to her by her confessor. He appears to care about her "soul" as an abstract thing--but not about her as a human being. As long as Sor Juana had people around her who could mirror back to her the positive aspects of her gifts, she was able to fend off these negative images. But once those mirrors are gone, she looks only into the negative reflections of those around her.

Internalized racism, sexism, ageism, etc. can be carried in the very people who are subject to these prejudices because identity is social. Thus as we continue to read Latino literature, we should also look for the ways in which identity is constructed--both positively and negatively--in the social situations it portrays.

Humility is a virtue, but I do not believe that humility caused by cruel and unusual treatment, bordering on psychological abuse, is redemptive. Whether or not it is true to life, the film portrays an abuse of power on the part of the archbishop, as well as the men who must stay in his favor or risk their own reputations. I did not see much humility displayed by any of these characters.

Let's not overlook the good that the Catholic Church has done in Latin America, where for decades many Catholics have been actively involved in helping the poor and the oppressed. Recently a group of Catholic priests signed a document in solidarity with immigrants from Mexico to the United States.

Will Latinos Transform the Way Americans look at Race and Culture?

One of the key themes in our class is identity. Sure, I thought when I started planning this class, identity is an important theme--we'll introduce our various points of view, talk about the various words for Latinos, and then move on. I had no idea then how complex the topic of identity is in Latino literature and culture--it's at the heart of everything we're reading and discussing, whether it's a 16th century exploration narrative turned spiritual pilgrimage or a late 20th century hybrid genre experiment in philosophy and poetry. Because, you see, it's not just about who you are--its about how the very categories of identity are constructed. This is illustrated by an article in The New York Times this week (13 January 2012). In "For Many Latinos, Racial Identity is More Culture than Color," Mireya Navarro writes about the dilemma "Hispanics" face when filling out the census forms. "People of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin may be of any race" the census form reads. So what race(s) do Latinos choose? More than one-third by passed the option of "mixed race" (pick two) and marked "other." The article argues that Latinos have a very different view of race--and that the issues most central to Latino life, such as language and immigration, have nothing to do with race. I wonder whether this attitude will eventually change the way all of America views race.

Sandra Cisneros

With the publication of The House on Mango Street in 1983, Sandra Cisneros put Latino Literature into the high school classroom. Although she has since published three books of poetry, a collection of short stories, and a novel, The House on Mango Street remains both her path breaking and most widely read book. This may be partly because of the timing as well as because of the format. Published a year after Alice Walker's The Color Purple won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982, it emerged for a readership eager for multicultural stories, and classrooms open to a more diverse curriculum. The short vignettes that make up The House on Mango Street are skillfully written and evocative--each one is a prose poem that displays Cisneros's poetic gifts. Collectively these Vignettes create the story of a neighborhood and the complex relationships between generations and genders. Integrated into the vignettes are social, cultural, and economic references. The narrator, Esperanza, longs to escape her neighborhood, and yet she has an appreciative eye for detail and manages to draw the reader into her world, its humanity and special flavor, even as she plans to escape it. The photo of Cisneros is from somaywebe.com.

The House on Mango Street, now nearly 30 years old, has garnered praise from such highly regarded authors as Gwendolyn Brooks and Maxine Hong Kingston. It is enshrined in the high school and college curriculum, as is evident on Spark Notes and the many websites that share class plans for the book. Yet, some student reviews on Amazon.com that complain about the "randomness" of this book. This naive response to the elegant structure of The House on Mango Street indicates another feature of Latino Literature: it is stylistically and linguistically innovative. Cisnero's vignettes together begin to paint a complex portrait of the factors involved an identity that is embedded in a community. A straightforward narrative might offer a sociological analysis of Cisneros's Chicago community, but it would obscure the daily events and imaginative responses to a variety of cultural stimuli that create Esperanza's world.

As you explore the "circles" of your multicultural selves, and write your own version of "My Name," note how intricately and yet simply Cisneros's story is composed. It has a clear sense of voice, offers the quirky associations of an individual mind, and weaves in a family story that subtly comments on traditional gender relations. What elements from your own life and imagination will create a composite portrait of your world and relationship to your communities?