Objective 3c

Ambivalence = coexistence in one person of contradictory emotions or attitudes (as love and hatred) towards a person or thing.

Objective 3

To compare and contrast the dominant “American Dream” narrative—which involves voluntary participation, forgetting the past, and individuals or nuclear families—with alternative narratives of American minorities, which involve involuntary participation, connecting to the past, and traditional, extended, or alternative families. 

3a. African American alternative narrative: “The Dream” 

3b. Native American Indian alternative narrative: "Loss and Survival"

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”

("Ambivalent" means having "mixed feelings" or contradictory attitudes. Mexican Americans as a group may feel or exemplify mixed feelings about whether they are a distinct, aggrieved minority group or an immigrant culture that will assimilate. As individuals or families who come to America for economic gain but suffer social dislocation, Mexican Americans resemble the dominant immigrant culture. On the other hand, much of Mexico's historic experience with the USA resembles the experience of the Native Americans: much of the United States, including Texas, was once Mexico. Does a Mexican who moves from Juarez to El Paso truly immigrate? In any case, it’s not just another immigrant story.)

Peter Skerry, Mexican Americans: The Ambivalent Minority (NY: Free Press, 1993)

Very Anglo way of looking at subject . . . accept limitations, develop model, watch for alternatives

Ambivalence describes life as divided, choose one or other . . . If you're determined to see life in that dualistic way, you can find plenty of evidence for seeing Mexican and Mexican American culture thus . . .

Virgin of Guadalupe story as "origin story" or "creation story" of modern Mexico

Two distinct identities at creation:

Bishop as representative of Europe, Catholic Christianity, the palace and court

Juan Diego as representative of Native America, native beliefs, countryside, family

action: Juan Diego torn between serving Virgin + Bishop, or taking care of his uncle

resolution(?): identity of Virgin as Mary + Indian

syncretism--"The V of G is a syncretic figure. . . . her apparition was on a sacred site traditionally associated with a female Indian god of fertility, Tonantzin. For centuries she has been the image of miscegenation incarnate, the blending of Spanish and Indian worlds." (Heath Anthology of American Literature)

p. 172 "Her sacred face is very beautiful, grave, and somewhat dark"

"Ambivalence" in Mexican identity repeated in Mexican American identity

hinges on this course's distinction of immigrant and minority experiences

immigrant voluntarily comes to America, assimilates, intermarries, absorbed

minority: involuntary contact, partial assimilation, limited intermarriage, distinct ethnicity survives

Where do Mexican Americans fit?

3c. Mexican American narrative: “The Ambivalent Minority”

("Ambivalent" means having "mixed feelings" or contradictory attitudes. Mexican Americans as a group may feel or exemplify mixed feelings about whether they are a distinct, aggrieved minority group or an immigrant culture that will assimilate. As individuals or families who come to America for economic gain but suffer social dislocation, Mexican Americans resemble the dominant immigrant culture. On the other hand, much of Mexico's historic experience with the USA resembles the experience of the Native Americans: much of the United States, including Texas, was once Mexico. Does a Mexican who moves from Juarez to El Paso truly immigrate? In any case, it’s not just another immigrant story.)

Most Americans broadly regard Mexicans as immigrants, and statistics bear out the impression.

"In 1970, the Mexican immigrant population was less than 800,000, compared to nearly 8 million in 2000."

(http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/mexico/release.html)

Observation: the dominant culture of the United States, itself formed by immigration, interprets Mexican presence as immigration . . . .

This interpretation is altogether justifiable according to statistics and contemporary national boundaries, laws, and definitions.

But another angle on subject, a sub-text or alternative narrative that follows from the shared history of the United States and Mexico.

historical maps of American expansion in early 1800s

Other Hispanic groups besides Mexicans haven't had this historical experience of being "conquered" by the growth of U. S. population.

In this regard, Mexican Americans do not resemble immigrant groups but rather a minority group, esp. Native Americans, in that "they were here first" and didn't necessarily join

Primary historical ambivalence: Immigrant x exploited

2 father a vaquero, even after big rancheros and tejanos came and fenced in the beautiful llano

3 effects of war, move to California [culture on move; cf. Dominant culture]

54 “those were beautiful years, the Llano was still virgin, there was grass as high as the stirrups of a grown horse, there was rain—and then the tejano came and built his fences, the railroad came, the roads—it was like a bad wave of the ocean covering all the good—“  

125 stories of the old days in Las Pasturas

sheepherders > cattle > horsemen > railroad and barbed wire

corridos, meeting of the people from Texas with my forefathers . . . uprooted, became migrants

14 father’s dream: move westward + sons

Other "ambivalences" expressed throughout novel

41 She understood that as I grew up I would have to choose to be my mother’s priest or my father’s son.  

51 first day of schooling, years and years of schooling, away from the protection of my mother.  I was excited and sad about it.

104 curandera x bruja

 58 tortillas x sandwiches

Conclusion: concept of Mexican Americans as "ambivalent minority" is logical, with plenty of textual evidence for development

serves course well in terms of differentiating "minority" and "immigrant" identities

But . . . almost too easy, too many examples

Among possible critiques: concept of "ambivalence" is so universal to human experience that any text will yield results

Also, it's a label (like "Hispanic") that's applied by an outsider rather than chosen by a member of the ethnic group. Skerry's an Anglo or white man, and evidently a conscientious scholar, so I'm not meaning to exclude his idea from consideration on this account. In an interview he himself said that his Mexican American friends "didn't like the term but couldn't come up with a better one," so he stayed with it.

"The Ambivalent Minority" is useful and honorable as an analytic term, but it may be only a provisional concept. Better terms may be in development.

222 I was caught in the middle

Preference: unity over division

67 California or highway work.  “Why does it have to be just those two choices?”  move to Las Vegas, work there, rent

238 possible to have both?

121 You have been seeing only parts . . . and not looking beyond into the great cycle that binds us all

176 everyone should survive, but in new form

247 reform the old materials, make something new

247 can a new religion be made?

247 first priest: father of Lunas?

248 the priest had changed, so perhaps his religion could be made to change

260 With the passing away of Tenorio and myself the meddling will be done with, harmony will be reconstituted.

What models can take the place of "ambivalent minority?"

Bi-cultural, bi-lingual

180 Many of the old people did not accept the new language and refused to let their children speak it, but my mother believed that if I was to be successful as a priest I should know both languages

Bridge

bridge between farm and town in Bless Me, Ultima

bridge where action of novel happens

167 bridge, dividing line b/w town (sin) and hills (quiet peace)

townspeople had killed Lupito at the bridge

Border

Gloria Anzaldua

look for "border" as concept more in Woman Hollering Creek

Syncretism

172 Vicks + herbs

Mestizo

 genetic blend of Spanish and Indian races

not two people but a single person

different attitudes toward "interracial middle" than USA

Mexican Americans aren't "divided people" but people with a new culture

symbols as fusion of disparate elements

Virgin of Guadalupe

cf. character of Ultima

Symbols in Bless Me, Ultima

use of number 3

27 the three giants of my dreams

88 the Trementina sisters, Tenorio’s three girls

101 three dolls > three women > take life > stick pins

232 three bundles

234 three brothers, dark figures

synesthesia

60 [synesthesia]

dream

30 Had it been a dream? Or a dream within a dream?

61 my soul floated with the holiness of prayer into the sky of dreams

99 waking dream

altered consciousness, divisions unite, identities substitute

100 suffered spasms my uncle suffered, we dissolved into each other

78 La Llorona

116 mermaid, deserted woman

120 Virgin of Guadalupe > mother!

187 Virgin and mother

187 I too would meet the Virgin; met Tenorio

different attitudes toward "interracial middle" than USA

Mexican Americans aren't "divided people" but people with a new culture

Another way to consider where we are:

People of my generation think of race / ethnicity in terms of black-white, Civil Rights Movement of 60s+

Changing reality is that multicultural America is less defined by two cultures, black and white, and more by a mixing brown middle

(This doesn't mean that black and white disappear, only that there's more of another reality that is neither black nor white, neither minority nor immigrant)

Historical sources of difference:

Central and South America

early European explorers were all male troops and clergy

> European men intermarry with Indian women

North America

early European settlers (esp. Pilgrims & Puritans in New England) not all-male but families

difference in Protestant & Catholic cultures?

presentation from Helena Seuss 2010

·        Antonio’s narrative is full of dualities: good/evil, Christian/pagan, llano/farm, curandera/bruja, wild/settled, damnation/salvation, etc. Moreover, Antonio assimilates these dualities in large part from family experiences. Everyone seems to have an idea of what he should do except him: his father wants him to be a Márez, a vaquero, a pagan, a wild man in tune with his freedom; his mother wants him to be a Luna, a farmer, a pagan, a settled man in tune with the earth. Yet both mother and father see their goals for their son as “natural.” For his father, “nature” means freedom, a giving over to the vicissitudes of “the sea.” For his mother, it means being able to “talk” to the earth, structured in time with the seasons and the cycle of the moon.

Two related questions: How do these dualities contribute to Antonio’s identity as a Mexican-American, in consideration of issues of “ambivalent identity” which we’ve discussed? (Objective 3c)

And what does this duality say about Mexican-American concepts of family and community, at least in Antonio’s understanding? His mother is all for community, even institutional communities like the Church; his father is not so sure that community is such a good thing. But they agree that ancestors, represented in the text by Ultima, are to be respected. (Objective 6a)

·        Our discussion on Love Medicine dealt with magic and spirits as a kind of insinuated force which occasionally came to the forefront (e.g., Lipsha’s healing power, Lulu seeing ghosts). Supernatural presences have arguably a larger, more direct role in Bless Me Ultima.

What purpose does magic serve in Antonio’s life? More structurally speaking, how does Anaya use magic to in his novel? Does Bless Me Ultima fall into the genre we call “magical realism,” a la Like Water for Chocolate? Consider for example the “magical reality” of the Golden Carp.

That is, is magic structural to the novel, does it “make” the text? Or is the text more mimetic of “real reality” where use v. non-use of magic is treated as more of a theme? (Objective 5)

In either case, can we reach any conclusions on how magic might or might not fit into Mexican-American society, as both are presented in Bless Me Ultima? In the Q&A at the end of my copy, Anaya states his belief that “the supernatural and ordinary reality are worlds that exist side by side.” (282) Does this shed any light on the topic? If so, how?

·        What about women? Besides Ultima and Antonio’s mother and sisters (who to an extent fulfill familial archetypes), the women of Bless Me Ultima are either witches or whores. Or both: the Trementina women are courtesans of Satan! And there is no redemption for these women. The Trementinas die from Ultima’s counter-curses and are damned, a fate presented as their just deserts. The whores mainly serve a narrative purpose as the representation of Andrew’s sins.

Is the novel’s misogyny conscious? Is Anaya making any sort of comment, obvious or oblique, on the place of women in Mexican-American society? Or is it unconscious? Is it potentially a consequence of Anaya’s own upbringing of which he is unaware, in which women were “expected” to fill these kinds of roles? (Objective 6, to some extent)

Whether conscious or unconscious this all begs the question: what is the place of women in Mexican-American society? Compare de la Cruz’s poem from last week. (Objective 2a)

·        Other things to consider:

o   Antonio’s quasi-prophetic dreams: elements of magic? Related to the African-American “dream” narrative? (Objective 3a)

o   Socioeconomic class: the priest in charge? Making a living by herding v. farming? Drunkenness? (Objective 2b-c)

o   More on community: the mob-murder of Lupito? Tenorio’s mob? (alternate expressions of Objectives 4b [“racial purity”—purging undesirables?] and 6a [mob as community])