una despedida...adios span322a

I have enjoyed this class, the topics covered and the books were all very interesting.
Explaining to people that I was taking a Spanish class...but mostly reading and speaking English confused a lot of people...but now that we've finished all of the different books I've come to realize that reading books written by Latinas/Chicanas in English is really representative of the dual identities that these women and allows them to express all aspects of their identities through writing and reach a variety of different audiences.

I think that the fact that these writers (the women at least) wrote in English says a lot about their experiences. I'm mostly thinking about Sandra Cisneros and Carmen Rodriguez (but Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton and Julia Alvarez are also important).

Sandra Cisneros is a bit different because she was born in the U.S. but her writing is very influential in depicting the unique Chicana dual identity of being of both cultures.
Rodriguez presents a similar context in a different way, as having a dual identity due to immigration. Rodriguez presents a very personal view of what it feels like to live as an immigrant Canada - accepting the culture of the new country while maintaining connection to that of your birth country.

The past few months I have been working on a research project for America Latina al Dia (a radio show on Co-op Radio). We've been talking to a lot of people about what they think about the show. People think that the show, which is bilingual, should remain bilingual because by using English, the show is able to present a Latin American perspective to English speakers, who may not have access to this perspective anywhere else. I think that the same goes for these books in English - they make the stories of Mexican-American, Dominican-American, Chicana and Chilean-American women available to English speakers.

I think that's all I've got for tonight. Also, if you guys don't already listen to co-op radio, you should, haha. Especially America Latina al Dia, Saturdays 12-1:30pm, 102.7fm.

and a body to remember with

I've been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be Canadian. I think that this book really explores the meaning of a Canadian identity.

I really enjoyed learning about the different immigration and cultural experiences of the three different women in "breaking the ice". That these women came together and shared stories in a hockey arena (how very "Canadian") at 6am was very nice. They really did create a true friendship and it seems that they are able to see how many people from all different places have similar immigration experiences.

I love that a lot of this book is based in Vancouver a lot in East Vancouver...Fraser and 49th, Britannia Community Centre, Commercial Drive etc.

I'm sure that if I'd ever been to Santiago or any other part of Chile I would feel even more connected to it. It's funny that when you read something written about somewhere you don't know, the names of streets and landmarks are just names, but if you've been there or lived there every place name and description of a familiar aspect of that landscape brings with it memories and personal experiences at that particular place. I often feel this way when reading Margaret Atwood books that are based in Toronto, everything she writes is exactly how I remember it growing up.

I'll admit that I have never taken much time to learn a lot about Chile, but this book has definitely sparked my interest and given me a lot to think about. It always seems that Chile and Argentina are two South American countries that seem to be really proud of their history. I was really intrigued by Rodriguez' descriptions of Chile during the dictatorship, how turned upside down it had become and that "these things only happened in the so-called 'banana republics', not in Chile." (p.74)

About drumsticks

This whole story about Yolanda and the black cat was an interesting ending. As I said in my last post I feel that a lot of this book was focussed on Yolanda and I think that I liked her the best. I really liked the story of the drum, and as I noticed others have blogged I that it was really interesting to meet the characters as grown women and then see them as children.

I also, however, thought it was interesting that Alvarez ended the story with a super-condensed sum up of Yolanda's life...
"Then we moved to the United States. The cat disappeared altogether. I saw snow. I solved the riddle of an outdoors made mostly of concrete in New York. My grandmother grew so old she could not remember who she was. I went away to school. I read books. You understand I am collapsing all time now so that it fits in what's left in the hollow of my story?" (285)

This whole last chapter I pictured Yolanda as a young child, roaming around the yard with her drum and since we met Yolanda as a woman already it was almost as though she is a friend who is telling you about her childhood, so you picture a miniature version of the woman that you know presently...does that make any sense? Even though I don't know her, it was just a different way of character development, somewhat tracing the four garcia girls' personalities backwards.

When she refers to the "hollow" of her story, I was thinking that since Yolanda is the character who both begins and ends the book, both first and last chapter taking place on "the island", perhaps all of the things that happen in between those two chapters...the good and the bad, life in the U.S. is just the filler, maybe what we are supposed to take away from her story are those parts that she shares with us about her time in the dominican republic? hmmm who knows.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, 1st half

I am enjoying this book so far, the way it is written, although different from Cisneros, is also a style that for me is easy to read and keeps my attention with its telenovela-style melodramas. When I first read the synopsis on the inside cover of the novel I thought “oooh how West Side Story!” but then I quickly realized that this is nothing like West Side Story, well except maybe that one chapter where Yolanda is “on the island” and the family discusses the differences between the U.S. and the Dominican Republic. “I like to be in America...everything free in America!” Does anyone else feel like singing that song throughout this book?

I’m intrigued by the reverse chronological/random chronological order in which Alvarez tells the stories of the four girls. I also like the chapter titles, and the declaration of whom the chapter is about, proving the confusing nature of stories about 4 sisters and people’s inability to remember who is who. I also noticed that sometimes Alvarez writes in the third person and sometimes it’s first person. This creates a real emotional divide between the writings, those in the third person (or better yet, those that refer to the characters as “the third daughter”, or my favourite “the mother”) are more impersonal, giving us less insight into the life and mind of the character. Whereas a chapter that is written in the first person, gives more of a sense of a character opening up and allowing the reader into their thoughts. The most interesting use of this was the two chapters that feature Yolanda, one after the other. The first, “Joe”, about Yolanda’s relationship with her ex-husband, John, was written in the third person whereas the following chapter “The Rudy Elmenhurst Story” was written in the first person. I haven’t quite figured out why Alvarez wrote these two stories so differently…maybe it will come with more insight into the character of Yolanda. I feel like so far Yolanda has been featured the most out of the 4 daughters.

This book deals with a lot of the themes that we’ve seen in some of the other literature in this class such as race, class, gender, immigration/migration, culture, identity, and probably many more common issues…but I think it deals with them in a different way.

I think “the mother” is an interesting character…so wrapped up in righteousness and the reputation of their family. It makes me think of the stories of immigrant families where the children do not understand the struggles of their parents in their home country. However it seems that when it comes to Dominican society, this family is pretty secure and is definitely upper class, despite the mother’s declaration of their poverty. I also find it interesting that we don't learn much about her until the chapter entitles "Daughter of Invention" when we learn that her name is Laura and that she aspired to invent things that would make the life of a housewife easier, and that she often mixes up English sayings (that was kinda funny).

espanglish

Are we supposed to talk about Cisneros' writing style?
I think that her use of Spanglish is very interesting...
My favourite part about the way she writes is her subtle way of hinting that a something is meant to be in Spanish, although it is written in English. For example, she directly translates Spanish phrases into English: "I gave light" (93), "My sky, my life, my eyes" (113)...expressions that are not the same in English. But then she also uses some funny Chicano Spanish words, for example "Wachelos" (123). Chicano Spanish has always intrigued me, both English and Spanish at the same time, but also neither.

My favourite stories in this second half of the book were Eyes of Zapata and Bien Pretty. Bien Pretty was written in such a way that pointed out the differences between the narrator, as an educated Chicana (supposedly born in the U.S.) woman and Flavio, a Mexican man living in the U.S. The narrator points out her dual identity, to bring it back to Gloria, her state of nepantla...
she says: "I wanted to be Mexican at that moment, but it was true. I was not Mexican" (152). It was also interesting when she pointed out that she had never "made love in Spanish before...not with anyone whose first language was Spanish" (153). This shows that she has lived a very hybridized Mexican-American life, not truly belonging to one culture or the other, one language or the other.

Their cultural differences are pointed out over dinner, she is talking about "Afro-Brazilian dance as a means of spiritual healing" (150) whereas he is talking about going to the gym every Thursday "with aims to build himself a body better than Mil Mascara's" (150). She is a University-educated Chicana from San Francisco...he is an exterminator from San Antonio...Cisneros is not subtle when she points out their cultural, social and class differences...while the narrator is interested in discussing culture, international cuisine and other more "intellectual" topics his choice of topics are far more superficial...what happens at work, his daily activities, his own superficial goal to have a better body than a lucha libre wrestler.

I totally loved this story.

I also totally loved Eyes of Zapata. Cisneros' ability to create this love story/affair of Emiliano Zapata and Ines was fantastic. I don't have much time to write about this one, but the one thing that I wanted to throw out there was this overall feeling that I got from Cisneros' writing about the Mexican revolution (I time when patriotism and loyalty were important things to define) to me the relationship between Ines and Zapata almost symbolizes Cisneros' relationship with Mexico and Mexican culture. A lifelong love affair, that is both strong and weak at the same time...but Ines says that despite how many other women Zapata is with he always comes back to her...to me this symbolized Cisneros' returns to Mexico throughout her life, never forgetting her love, her life of Mexico, proving her loyalty to Mexico despite her dual identity as a Mexican-American and the life she creates in the United States. Okay that's it for now...hasta manana.

las tres madres de mexico

I love this book, I knew that I would love it, I've been excited to read it for a while now.

My favourite stories so far have been "My Lucy Friend who Smells Like Corn" and "Mericans".

I especially liked the character of the awful grandmother in "Mericans".
I found this story to say a lot about chicanos born in the United States to Mexican parents, growing up speaking spanglish, without a firm grasp on Spanish i.e "the awfulgrandmother says it all in Spanish, which I understand when I'm paying attention" (19), it was also funny when the woman outside the church was surprised to learn that the children spoke English. To me this represents the unique border identity of chicanos and their ability to be both Mexican and American at the same time.

Cisneros writes about "las tres madres de mexico" (a concept that is common in writing by Chicana women and that Gloria often wrote about)...Guadalupe, the virgin mother whhas not abandoned her people, la Malinche/Malintzin, the raped mother and mother of mestizaje, and la Llorona, la madre que grita y llora para sus hijos perdidos.

My favourite was this line: "La Virgen de Guadalupe on the main altar because she's a big miracle, the crooked crucifix on a side altar because that's a little miracle" (18), this really shows how much la virgen is revered in Mexico and how Jesus is important to the religion of the country but his presence is not as widespread and is not as characteristic of mexican culture.

La virgen de guadalupe es la "reina de mexico" y era un milagro mexicano, pero jesucristo es importante para todos los cristianos, la virgen es para los mexicanos.

Those who know me know that I am fascinated by the virgen de guadalupe and the symbolism and culture surrounding her veneration. So, the fact that cisneros refers to la virgen in her writing just makes me love her a little bit more.

She also talks about la Llorona in "Woman Hollering Creek"..."Perhaps la Llorona is the one they named the creek after, she thinks, remembering all the stories she learned as a child" (51). La Llorona, the wailing woman, is a very important figure in this story and in mexican folklore.

Lastly, Cisneros creates an image of la Malinche/Malintzin in the stoy "Never Marry a Mexican" in which the narrator takes on the role of la malinche, with Drew as Cortez.
La Malinche was given the nickname "la Chingada", because as gloria says, she was the raped mother of mexico, an indigenous woman who gave birth to the first mestizo.

When I read this: "I was there first, always. I've always been there, in the mirror, under his skin, in the blood, before you were born" (76) it immediately made me think that the narrator, as la Malinche was talking about mexico, that her people had always been there, before the Spaniards and before the mestizos. That this story of a man cheating on his wife with her (la malinche/la chingada/la puta, the opposite of the pure virgen de guadalupe) to me symbolizes how mexico was taken advantage of and violated by the Spaniards. Maybe I'm way off, maybe you don't agree...maybe I've read too much gloria anzaldua and see the virgen/puta dichotomy in everything...but that's how I saw it when I read it.

Okay that's it for now, can't wait to read more of this book.

chicana/o or latina/o?

Since some of the authors in our reading list are not Mexican-American but are Dominican-American or descendant from parents born in other Latin American countries, they are not all Chicanos...but are they all Latinos?

Se puede decir que cada mexicano-estadounidense es un "chicano"? Creo que no...me parece que "Chicano/a" es una identidad que uno/a elige para si mismo. Del mismo sentido, se puede decir que todos los Chicanos tambien son Latinos? Que es la diferencia entre Chicano y Latino? Me acuerda de una clase de geografia aqui en ubc donde aprendimos que "chicano/a" es una identidad que tiene mas sentido politico que "latina/o" Tambien Chicano refiere solamente a gente que han nacido en los EEUU, no a los mexicanos que nacieron en mexico y viven/han vividos en los EEUU.

So, Jose Marti is not a Chicano, right? By the definitions that are commonly accepted (and according to wikipedia) Marti would not be Chicano because he was born in Cuba to Spanish parents. However, would he be considered Latino? More likely, I think. But, since he did spend some time living in Mexico and in the U.S. could he identify himself as a Chicano if he believed in the politics? Quien sabe?

Y Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton? Was she a Chicana? Maybe because of the political and feminist nature of her writings. But, if you were to base the decision solely on geography and not of politics or philosophy she would not be, since technically she was born in Mexico and moved to the U.S. ... but she moved to a part of the U.S. that used to be Mexico...so now this is confusing, one of those instances where the border moved, not el pueblo.

But since Chicano/a identity is both very political and personal, ultimately it is up to the individual to define their own identity. Either way, all of the authors that we are reading in this class have a similar experience in that they have Latin American ancestry (or were born in a Latin American country) and have lived in the U.S., both of these aspects of their individual identities have a definite influence over their writing.

Okay, now I'm rambling. I have enjoyed these books...Rivera has been my favourite so far, and I look forward to reading the books to come.