Latin America as a whole contains twenty-two Spanish speaking countries and within these twenty-two nations, they have produced a variety of well accomplished writers that are recognized world-wide. Each author represents and demonstrates important subjects, bringing attention to various literary movements in their writing. All writers hold a degree of reputation and one author in particular brings attention to the Chicano movement in the 1960’s. José Antonio Villarreal’s book Pocho draws attention to the inquisition of cultural identity, the road to self-discovery as a person comes of age and the struggle of gender roles. While at the same time, the literature in addition demonstrates elements of literary devices. Such as use of the style …show more content…
The use of the Spanish language comes far in between when it translated through the pages. Simple phrases of the language are being used that in a form have no significant value behind them, especially when we encounter Richard’s parents who we know do not speak English. “‘Pass, don Juan. Pass into your house,’ said a small dark man at the door” (Villarreal 119). The translation and the real meaning behind appear to become lost and is confusing in what exactly the character is trying to convey by the use of the word pass. The word choice of the author does not illustrate the use of the language to its full potential as different Chicano authors have presented in their writing. Writer, Minoves Myers can reinforce to this by stating, “Pocho neither exhibits an extensive sampling nor offers the rich repertoire of code switching commonly found in later Chicano novels.” Villarreal can be accredited with being a Chicano author, however he does not use language to its full advantage to convey his message further to the …show more content…
As the book primarily focuses on Richard as the main character in the story, we as readers observe what is expected by both females and males in the Mexican culture. “When the day came that he married Zelda, he would be forced to find himself, for Richard was certain that he could never revolve his whole life around marriage. He could not give that institution the importance it had falsely taken on through the centuries” (Villarreal 145). Richard by default and culture is expected to become a hardworking man to provide for his family, despite having dreams that extend to being more than a traditional man. As the book comes to an end, Richard is interjected into this particular role with no other option when his father leaves the family. Each passing page of the last chapter, Richard becomes suffocated as a permanent obligation to his mother and many sisters sets in and he resents the repeated cycle. The reoccurring routine becomes highly noticed by Ricard that he has a sense of clarity and foreshadowing of the future as an old man stuck in the same place. With the urge to escape, Richard finds a solution through the enlisting of the military in hopes of becoming a writer and never returning to Santa Clara. The role of women in Pocho can be viewed as possessing the same obligation as
Through the use of pathos, schemes, and tropes, Rodriquez offers his conflicting feelings about California and Mexico. By contrasting Mexico and California with these styles of writing, he sets up
During the 1960’s, the Civil Rights Movement wasn’t the only one occurring. Struggling to assimilate into American culture, and suppressed by social injustices convicted by their Anglo counterparts, the Chicano movement was born. In the epic poem “I am Joaquin” written by Rodolfo Gonzales in 1969, we dive into what it means to be a Chicano. Through this poem, we see the struggles of the Chicano people portrayed by the narrator, in an attempt to grasp the American’s attention during the time of these movements. Hoping to shed light on the issues and struggles the Chicano population faced, Gonzales writes this epic in an attempt to strengthen the movement taking place, and to give Chicanos a sense of belonging and solidarity in this now
You can see how Maria’s El Salvador is empty of people, full only of romantic ideas. Jose Luis’s image of El Salvador, in contrast, totally invokes manufactured weapons; violence. Maria’s “self-projection elides Jose Luis’s difference” and illustrates “how easy it is for the North American characters, including the big-hearted María, to consume a sensationalized, romanticized, or demonized version of the Salvadoran or Chicana in their midst” (Lomas 2006, 361). Marta Caminero-Santangelo writes: “The main thrust of the narrative of Mother Tongue ... continually ... destabilize[s] the grounds for ... a fantasy of connectedness by emphasizing the ways in which [Maria’s] experience as a Mexican American and José Luis’s experiences as a Salvadoran have created fundamentally different subjects” (Caminero-Santangelo 2001, 198). Similarly, Dalia Kandiyoti points out how Maria’s interactions with José Luis present her false assumptions concerning the supposed “seamlessness of the Latino-Latin American connection” (Kandiyoti 2004, 422). So the continual misinterpretations of José Luis and who he really is and has been through on Maria’s part really show how very far away her experiences as a middle-class, U.S.-born Chicana are from those of her Salvadoran lover. This tension and resistance continues throughout their relationship.
Social standards may confine individuals from pursuing their own personal interests. Through the relationship between societal standards and individual interests, Sandra Cisneros’ short story, “Woman Hollering Creek,” introduces the roles of men and women in a Hispanic culture. The protagonist, Cleofilas Hernandez, is trapped in an abusive relationship with her newly-wed husband, Juan Pedro. However, Cleofilas tolerates the toxic relationship due to the social norms of her society, which reveals that the Hispanic culture revolves around a patriarchal society and that women have to be submissive to their husbands. As the story progresses, Cleofilas abandons the gender norm to lead an independent lifestyle.
Judith Ortiz Cofer a Latin American author of short stories, poetry, autobiography, young adult fiction, and essays, as a young child migrated to Mainland America from Puerto Rico with her family, moving into an apartment complex with other people of Latin descent. Although, she spent most of her years in the Continental U.S. her writings are reflective of the strong latin heritage that her mother undoubtedly instilled in her from a young age. This is clear in her short story “Nada” where the narrator makes references to the hispanic community that live at an apartment complex in New Jersey. Cofer’s style of writing and experiences in her life are brought out in this story as well as many more of her writings. She includes some Spanish words throughout the story and ideals of the hispanic culture.
In my analysis of this novel, The Adventure of Don Chipote or, When Parrots Breast-Feed by Daniel Venegas, I kept in mind that Nicolás Kanellos put great effort into getting this novel circulated in Spanish and in English. Kanellos argues that Spanish-language immigrant novels more accurately present the “evils” of American society such as oppression of the immigrant workers and deconstructs the myth of the American Dream, which permeates in English-language ethnic autobiographies. I believe Kanellos felt so passionately about circulating this particular novel was due to the fact that in Venegas’ novel we see clear representations of the three U.S. Hispanic cultures that Kanellos presents which are the native, the immigrant, and the exile cultures.
Edited by several scholars such as Gabriella F. Arredondo, Aída Hurtado, Norma Klahn, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, and Patricia Zanella, this book in particular highlights the development of Chicana identities in the twentieth century by showing “how Chicana feminist writings move discourse beyond binaries and toward intersectionality and hybridity” (Arredondo e.al. 2). What is interesting is how the feminist scholars in this book used different epistemologies and methods in capturing the experiences of the Chicanas which include oral histories, poetry, theatrical performance, painting, dance, music and social science survey. Some of the contributors also combine “analytical tools and cross disciplinary boundaries” (5). The approaches used are very unique as they enables to unravel the Chicana experiences thoroughly and disrupt “the notion of Chicana identity as monolithic and homogeneous” (6). Also, the format of the book which presents articles and then the responses by another activist or scholars offers a very distinct way of presenting critical and provocative analysis. Such format allows the editors to “reaffirm the tensions and creativity of individual and group consciousness that underlie Chicana feminism and scholarship” (Salas 122). From this edited volume, I choose three articles along with their responses. Those articles are Cartohistografía: Continente de una voz/Cartohistography: One Voice’s Continent by Elba Rosario Sánchez (response: Translating Herstory: A Reading
In this article, “The Myth of the Latin Woman” Cofer has talked about many incidents from her life where she was talked about, from a young girl the adult life. Ortiz Cofer is so ardent about this topic of stereotyping Latin women because she was a native women of the Puerto Rico area who really grew up in the United States. There is how she witnessed firsthand how hurtful stereotyping could be. In “The Myth of the Latin Woman”, She has repeated use of Spanish words in the essay to shows her audience how proud she is of the Latin heritage. she continuously uses other words, such as Puerto Rican, and Latina to stress the names she heard growing up. Because she has been brought up to love her Latin culture, she was often stereotyped here in the United States. As you can see, this is why she became so involved with trying to bring people so much awareness to the
The first issue that many Latino author’s address is the problems in many Latin American countries. In Esperanza Rising Esperanza’s family faces the backlash of the Mexican revolution. Esperanza’s family has land in Mexico which makes them a target for many unhappy citizens in Mexico. Esperanza’s mother has to explain to her that, "the wealthy still own most of the land while some of the poor have not even a garden plot. There are cattle grazing on the big ranches, yet some peasants are forced to eat cats" (Ryan, 25). Eventually Esperanza’s father is murdered by bandit’s and they are forced to leave the dangerous country. Mexico is not the only place with major issues. Young Adult literature often reaches into the historical hardships of other Latin countries, such as the dictators of the Dominican Republican in Julia Alvarez’s novel Before We Were Free. Alvarez talks about the distrust of the police, stating “Back home, [her father] had been tailed by the secret police for months and the family had only narrowly escaped capture their last day on the Island” (Alvarez 233). Young Adult literature reflects this often as a background story, forcing the protagonists into the environment they are in. As well, it frames the families’ mindset and the hardships many have faced before
Many of Mario Vargas Llosa’s younger literary publications were laced with Marxist critiques of a transitioning Latin American society in the 20th century, and though on the surface, “Los Cachorros” may seem little more than a fictional coming of age narrative, the allegorical short story is no exception. Told through an encyclopaedic tour of Lima’s urban spaces, a pack of boys’ transition into young men and their interactions with the city reflect both the rigidity and fragmentation of the Peruvian community as a whole. With particular reference to chapter five, this essay will explore the cities implicit influence on the characters’ fulfilment of heteronomous social identities, and Vargas Llosa’a use of specific literary devices to
Latin American literature is perhaps best known for its use of magical realism, a literary mode where the fantastical is seamlessly blended with the ordinary, creating a sort of enhanced reality. Though magical realism is practiced by authors from other cultures, the works of authors Salman Rushdie and Toni Morrison, for example, are notable examples of non-Latin works in which magical realism has been used to both great effect and great celebration, it is in the works of Latin American authors where the style has flourished and made its mark on the literary world. Yet even in Latin American works we can find many different kinds of magical realism, all used to achieve a different end. In the works of the Cuban poet and novelist
Women of Latin American culture have incessantly ensued the potent gender roles that have become a social construction of their society over innumerable decades. The profound author of Insurgent Mexico, John Reed, imparts his experiences with the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution, like Pancho Villa, and was able to witness their culture and more specifically the roles these Mexican women were forced to render by their chauvinistic counterparts. This period of revolution, started to grant women new mantles usually reserved only for men, like participating in fighting for the success of the revolution; any preeminent changes would soon approach, but in the meantime Mexican society run by men enjoyed the regulated traditional
Alfred Hitchcock always left the viewers of his films with multiple interpretations. In Psycho, one of his most famous films, Alfred leaves the viewers with multiple themes to be thinking about. One of those many themes being duality, or good versus evil. There are many details in the movie that imply good versus evil, one of those being Norman Bates dual personality. When Norman is himself he is a kind well put together man.
Latin American literature shows us how to keep moving, but not everyone listens. In conclusion, this literature was written with the purpose of informing us, but whether we listen or not makes the
Kids taken from mothers, people stripped of their cultures, and families separated. Latin American people have gone through burdens unimaginable to other, more developed, countries around the world. Latin America has a very distinct culture, but that culture was stripped from the people and replaced with another culture. Latin America’s diverse culture shows in its use of magical realism and their intriguing ways of telling history. Magical realism is used to represent the mistreated figures and atrocious leaders in their literature. One of these writers is Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Born in Aracataca, Colombia this latino writer used magical realism in his stories to represent the conditions in Latin America. He uses characters in his stories to represent Latin America and how the countries people are treated. Gabriel originally went to school to be a lawyer, but later gave that up to be a journalist. His short stories and inspirational speeches were awarded the Nobel Prize of Literature and the International Literature Award. Although Latin America was beaten down, they still persevered. They gained their independence and started to become the great country they once were. Like Gabriel said in his speech, “The Solitude of Latin America,” “Nevertheless, in the face of oppression, pillage, and abandonment, our reply is life.” This tells us that Latin America, in the face of defeat, rises and comes back twice as strong. The constant oppression of their people and the suffering