LITR 5731 Seminar in American
Multicultural Literature
Minority Literature
Lecture Notes
begin Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek
Style: what doing with viewpoint? Border of 1st person & 3p limited
Compare Love Medicine: story collection or novel?
terms / names: retablo, La Malinche, Frida Kahlo
Introduce Whitman as "gay poet"
Whitman lived 1819-92
word "homosexual" wasn't coined until 1892, year of Whitman's death
coincidence!
Complexities of gay identity . . . more or less permanent, perennial fact of human existence, but doesn't rise from any one source, but takes many forms or expressions
America's greatest poet as a gay poet?
Whitman as poet who gives voice to voiceless
multiple-identitied model?
Next week:
Civil War poems of Whitman as another possible expression
Assignment: comments re contemporary style
Gender / family-self: modern x traditional
Ambivalence or “range” of Mex Am
Ethnicity / race
Sex / gender
class
Help me describe: west as Tex-Mex: Ultima saloon & church
Cisneros’s style;
compare Anaya
Syncretism, or
what?
Tex Mex language mix
Metaphor of the border
Gender / family-self: modern x traditional
18-19 girl > German
55 the pickup was hers
56 pain or rage x hoot
69 toothbrush cf. flag at North Pole
127 x-choose being female, painter
127 love something
instead of someone
127 no woman wants
to live alone
128 What they teach you at the University?
128 Acting like a bolilla, a white girl
128 Mary the Mild > our mother Tonantzin
128 suffer > special power
Ambivalence or “range” of Mex Am
17 PRI elections
20 speak English? . . . We’re Mericans
23 this borrowed country
27 Chaq < Mayan kings
28 sent to
32 blamed Uncle Lalo > this country
33 sent my mother
to the
46
The Rich Also Cry
50 Mex /
51 Llorona?
52 US w/o TV, telenovela
52 not of the same class
55 a regular soap opera sometimes
55 a Spanish pocked with English
62 love slave,
68 [Mother] born in US, father born there
69 [list of Hispanic nations]
69 Mexican family x el otro lado
69 marrying up, even if white girl poor [race & class]
69 Mex girl can’t speak Spanish
70 sat on back of
bus in
70 x-economic refugee, immigrant
71 amphibious, x-any class: money, education
110 future and past as single thread
112 ancient land titles, grants, in Nahuatl
131 Lady at the K-Mart [replaces elder in giving advice]
Help me describe:
west as Tex-Mex
Handout on
45
Ultima 92 saloon opposite church
62 love slave,
114 El Divorcio Lounge
120 what I send home – wife, kid, in-laws depend
121 el Skyler
130 Big Red
140 Southwest funk
155 All my Ex’s
Live in
Cisneros’s style
Review exploration of Ultima; contrast humor, “friendly”
Compare Alexie: shifts viewpoint; unsettled perspective;
distancing > irony x profundity, seriousness
Los Acknowledgements
5 could be sisters, right?
6 like my little wooden dolls [diminutive, + continued image,
symbol]
9 have to close your eyes to see it [paradox]
30 initiated
31 pushcart?
32 moon of my cycle
33 Caves of the Hidden Girl [false mythicism or repressed
voice starting to find itself?]
“My Tocaya”
36 humor
37 Mex with Brit accent
37 [texture of popular culture]
38 Sex Rap Crap = Youth Exchange
38 hormones + sister Virginella
44 milkshake > pimple on backside
48 [quick insight]
62 love slave,
“Never Marry a Mexican” starts p. 68
[ultimately falls apart—viewpoint too diffuse or psychotic—not
sure one cares]
88 when you are gone I re-create you from memory . . . I miss
you even as you lie next to me
95 [false gravity?]
117 pain in the nalgas [use of Spanish for euphemism]
123 [language transition]
130 [oral proverb]
“Tin Tan Tan”
135-6 pastiche?—literary, artistic, or musical work that
imitates the style of previous work
parody?—2. a feeble or ridiculous imitation
Syncretism
29 people of the sun
29 stars, ancient stones . . . pedestals
30 bring back ancient ways
119 Seven African Powers . . . Bible says?
122 Black Christ
139-40 [MX artifacts, curios]
140 Southwest funk
141 I Ching
141 criminal lawyer + Aztec dance instructor, Berkeley
157 La yin y el yang
158-9 church-sanctioned candles x folk powers
Sandra Cisneros,
Woman
Hollering Creek and Other Stories. NY: Vintage,
1991.
Los Acknowledgements
Tex-Mex text inspected by Juanita “La Tejanita” Luna-Lawhn
Virgen de Guadalupe Tonantzin
I. My Lucy Friend who smells like Corn
3 Her whole family like that
5 could be sisters, right?
“Eleven”
6 [childlike wonder at small thoughts]
6 like my little wooden dolls
9 tiny-tiny [precious]
9 have to close your eyes to see it
“
10 homes the color of bad weather
10 body with geography of scars
11 like a memory of kites
“Mexican Movies”
12 red red (cf. 9 tiny tiny)
13 like little houses
13 Mama puts her sweater (> sentiment)
“Barbie-Q”
“Mericans”
[set in
17 Virgen de Guadalupe
17 PRI elections
18 Auntie Light-Skin
18 Virgen
18 B-52 Bomber x German
18 Girl = German
Girl = Tonto
19 relatives
19 barbaric
country (
19 movies / church cf. Pedro Infante
20 ladies dressed in pants
20 speak English? . . . We’re Mericans
“Tepeyac”
21 ink of Japanese blue / La Virgen
21 Cinco de Mayo
22 Juan Diego
23 that borrowed country
23 [modernization]
23 one who will remember
II. One Holy Night
27 Chaq < Mayan kings
28 sent to
29 strange language
29 past and future are the same to his people [Indian time]
29 people of the sun
29 stars, ancient stones . . . pedestals [romanticization of
Indian past; cf Bubbas and American Indians]
30 bring back ancient ways
30 initiated
31 pushcart?
32 moon of my cycle
32 blamed Uncle Lalo > this country
33 sent my mother
to the
34 Caves of the Hidden Girl
35 love like harmonica
“My Tocaya”
36 humor
37 Mex with Brit accent
37 fist fights [tight families]
37 [texture of popular culture]
38 Sex Rap Crap = Youth Exchange
38 hormones + sister Virginella
40 drain ditch, body > rose from dead 3 days later
40
III. There was a Man, There was a Woman
“Woman Hollering Creek”
43 look south, dream of returning
43 border, other side, father’s permission
43 x- man, woman
> parent, child
44 milkshake > pimple on backside
44 telenovela
44 passion . . . always loving, no matter what
45 to suffer for love is good
45
46
The Rich Also Cry
46 La Gritona < de los indios, townspeople shrugged [cf. La
Llorona]
46 in this country . . .
48 [quick insight]
50 Mex /
51 Llorona?
52 US w/o TV, telenovela
52 not of the same class
55 a regular soap opera sometimes
55 a Spanish pocked with English
55 the pickup was hers
56 pain or rage x hoot
“Marlboro Man”
57 gay?
58 same Marlboro man?
58 hill country
59 cf. Lassies, Shamu, Ralph
“La Fabulosa: A
62 love slave,
“Remember the
[trouble reading—inquire?]
66 no in-between except for the show
“Never Marry a Mexican”
[ultimately falls apart—viewpoint too diffuse or psychotic—not
sure one cares]
68 [Mother] born in US, father born there
69 toothbrush cf. flag at North Pole
69 [list of Hispanic nations]
69 Mexican family x el otro lado
69 marrying up, even if white girl poor [race & class]
69 Mex girl can’t speak Spanish
70 sat on back of
bus in
70 x-economic refugee, immigrant
71 amphibious, x-any class: money, education
72 be like Frida or Tina
72 barrio cute in
daytime, cf.
72 Our Lady of Guadalupe church
72 cf. wild, wild West
73 water under the damn?
74 Malinella, Malinche + Cortez
76 brown woman = sister; white woman not sister
“Bread”
84 charming x poverty
“Eyes of Zapata”
87 land titles
88 owl wings
88 Malenita
88 when you are gone I re-create you from memory . . . I miss
you even as you lie next to me
92 a
chachalaca
flew into the house and batted against the ceiling
95 [false gravity?]
97 hummingbird + Virgencita
100 you’ve left many mothers crying
101 eyes with teeth
101
caciques
after land, law, women
105 the power to see with more than our eyes
106 if I am a witch
106 you spoke in
mexicano
110 belong to the land
110 future and past as single thread
112 Zapata name > PRI campaign
112 ancient land titles, grants, in Nahuatl
“Anguiano Religious Articles”
114 El Divorcio Lounge
114 Santo Nino de Atocha
114 cheaper on
the other side –
115 furry eyelashes
“Little Miracles, Kept Promises”
116 retablo
117 San Martin de Porres
117 Zulema finish school x helping at home
117 pain in the nalgas [use of Spanish for euphemism]
117 man man . . .
cooking, cleaning . . . adult [cf.
119 Seven African Powers . . . Bible says?
120 [employer won’t pay—classical immigrant problem?]
120 what I send home – wife, kid, in-laws depend
121 el Skyler
121 milagrito
122 trip to
122 Black Christ
123 [language transition]
124 British Restoration Literature
124 [transition to extended story]
124 a woman with one foot in this world and one foot in that
126 a painter!
127 x-choose being female, painter
127 love something
instead of someone
127 no woman wants
to live alone
127 putting up with pain in name of God
127 Virgen > bare-breasted, snakes, bulls, x-self-sacrifice
127 Malinchiste. Hocicora.
128 What they teach you at the University?
128 Acting like a bolilla, a white girl
128 Mary the Mild > our mother Tonantzin
128 suffer > special power
“Los Boxers”
130 Big Red
130 [oral proverb]
131 Lady at the K-Mart [replaces elder in giving advice]
“There Was . . . “
“Tin Tan Tan”
135-6 pastiche?—literary, artistic, or musical work that
imitates the style of previous work
parody?—2. a feeble or ridiculous imitation
“Bien Pretty”
137 chaparritos
138 Flavio > Rogelio
138 [exterminator ad]
139 I.
139-40 [MX artifacts, curios]
140 Southwest funk
141 I Ching
141 criminal lawyer + Aztec dance instructor, Berkeley
141 Meskins
142 TX: chain saws, gun racks, pickups, Confederate flags
142 tejanote = Texcessive
142 “la otra”
142 Eddie: human
rights in
143 perfect Prince Popo
144 classic > kitsch calendar art
144 Torres Taco Haven
145 poet + bug assassin
148 storytelling competitions
149 Oralia
149 thinking about time
150 [metaphysical melting pot—buffet-style religion]
151 product of American imperialism
151 x-serape & sombrero > Mexican
152 made by a God who loved you, . . . from red clay [origin
story]
153 made love in Spanish
153 Ouch! > !Ay!
153 Words that smelled like your house [cf. Rodriguez]
153 English starched, crisp, crunch, resilient, stiff
154 letters of Georgia O’Keeffe
155 All my Ex’s
Live in
157 La yin y el yang
158-9 church-sanctioned candles x folk powers
159 Law Stay Away
159 herbs look like animal
161 women who make things happen
162 telenovela star weeps like a Magdalene
163 me and me
165 x-future, past > today