Traditional and Non-traditional Mexican American Literature

            I decided to write about Mexican-American literature because I wanted to know more about my culture and people. Ever since I started attending the UH-CL I got interested about learning and knowing more about my people. This semester I have gotten the opportunity to take courses that helped me appreciate my culture. I enjoyed taking this course and doing this project because I found many good things about great Mexican-American authors. I was hoping to find some non-traditional Mexican-American literature, and I did.

            This semester we read Sandra Cisneros “Barbie-Q” and Nash Candelaria’s “El Patron” and those non-fiction stories do portray real Mexican-American issues. They portray some of the traditional stories that are commonly written among Mexican-American authors. The story of “El Patron” reveals the issue of the father being the authority of the family, even if married or living outside the home. The story also demonstrates how the sons have to follow the same life pattern of the father. In the story “Barbie-Q” we are able to feel what the main character feel s when she has a doll that is not like the other girls. We see that the burned doll the girl gets means a lot to her. Adulfo Anaya’s Bless Me Ultima is a novel that also portrays Mexican-American issues. In this novel the main character, Antonio, goes through some of the issues that many sons and daughters of Mexican immigrant parents go through. The question of identity, religion, and obedience toward the family are taken into place in this novel. This book also includes some of the Mexican traditions such as Ultima being a curandera and being that older wise person in the family.

            Many of the short stories I went through were written by the sons or daughters of Mexican immigrants. The majority of the Mexican-American authors write about situations that their parents or grandparents went through. There is much literature that is written about people working in mines, agriculture, and other manual labor jobs. There is also much literature written about family traditions and the toughness it can be for someone born in the United States to have a very traditional family. Many of these authors write about that sense of identity, religion and family beliefs. Another topic which is very common to find in Mexican-American literature is that in which the main character or author goes back to their childhood memories. It is not strange to see Mexican-American literature in which there is a young boy or girl. I define all of these types of literature to be traditional because this type of literature is very common to see among the Mexican-American authors.

            After commenting to Ms. Linda Contreras-Bullock that I wanted different types of literature, she recommended for me to go over some of the works of Jose Angel Gutierrez. I remember him coming to UH-CL for a Latino conference, in which he was the keynote speaker. I went over two of his works and another work in where there is commentaries made of him and some commentaries made by him. Jose Angel Gutierrez is Mexican-American or Chicano civil rights leader born in Crystal City, Texas. In his works he writes about some of the modern day issues that Chicanos or Mexican-Americans face in the United States. In the books The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal and A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans he is not afraid to speak out some the real life experiences he faced. Gutierrez is not afraid to speak out his mind and reveal to the community the real facts that are going on in the world. He writes about his experiences in college and the objects he faced being a Mexican-American in his school as well as life career. In the book The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal he also writes about those traditional issues such as the Catholic religion, family, manual labor jobs, childhood and self-identity.

            I did identify a lot of myself in going through these works. I see that all of Chicanos or Mexican-Americans pretty much face the same things from past to present. We are now seeing a little bit more different literature like the ones of Jose Angel Gutierrez being published in where we are not afraid to talk and show the real picture but also not forgetting our backgrounds and where we come from. Mexican-Americans are encouraging others to succeed but not to forget about those stories told by grandparents and parents. A good example of this is a lecture done by Sandra Cisneros written in the anthology Hispanic American Literature in which she encourages women to write about those silent voices such as our mothers who never had the opportunity to write about their life.

            During this research I found a lot of good sources. I did not where to start and then after much looking I decided to write about the traditional stories written by Mexican-Authors and those non-traditional works written by authors such as Jose Angel Gutierrez. I learned many things but the most important to not forget from where you come from. First-generation people tend to forget or be ashamed of where we come from. There are many great things about our culture that we have to cherish and keep and one of those is our literature. With going through many authors it makes me want to read more of their works because I can identify myself with them.

Works Cited

Anaya, Rudolfo. Bless Me Ultima. New York: Warner Books, 1972.

Brown, Wesley and Amy Ling. Eds. Imagining America:Stories from the Promised Land.  New York: Pasea, 2002.

Candelaria, Nash. “El Patron.” Brown and Ling 221-228.

Cisneros, Sandra. “Barbie-Q” Brown and Ling 252-253.

Cisneros, Sandra. “Ghosts and Voices: Writing from Obsession.” Kanellos 45-49.

Cisneros, Sandra. “Notes to a Young(er) Writer.” Kanellos 50-52.

Gutierrez, Jose A. A Gringo Manual on How to Handle Mexicans. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2001.

Gutierrez, Jose A. The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1998.

Kanellos, Nicolas. Hispanic American Literature: A Brief Introduction and Anthology. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.

Rosales, F. A. Testimonio: A Documentary History of the Mexican American Struggle for Civil Rights. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2000.

Salas, Floyd. “The Water Tower.” Kanellos 14-20.

Villasenor, Victor. “The Confession.” Kanellos 30-33.

[MG]