LITR 5731 Seminar in Multicultural Literature American Immigrant Literature

Kristin Hamon 21 June 2012 visit to LITR 5731 summer seminar Discussion of "El Patron"

Pancho Villa, 1878-1923

*****Senior Martinez, Tito, Emiliano, and Lola all occupy different places on the land bridge.

*****One of the most important references to the metaphor of the land bridge is that of Senior Martinez’s crossing, of which Tito is unaware. Why hasn’t Tito been told of this crossing and land bridge experience?

·       226 “Papa, how old were you when you left Mexico for the U.S.?”

·       226 “He disowned you, didn’t he? Grandpa disowned you. Called you a traitor to your own country. A deserter when things got tough.”

·       226 “He sighed. The look on his face showed that sometimes memories were best forgotten.”

How does Lola use the concept of the land bridge in order to bring understanding to a fragile relationship?

*****Lola exposes a truth that Tito has not previously known. Senior Martinez’s crossing had been hidden! Tito could never accurately understand his father because their respective experiences with the land bridge are rife with very different consequences and emotions.

For Mexican American immigrants and their families, la frontera supports a delicate balance between the familiar self of Mexico’s multi-generational families and the autonomous, unprotected self one must assert in American society.

*****Where does each character stand on the metaphorical land bridge? Are any of the characters moving “back and forth” or refusing to do so? In other words, is the land bridge serving as a bridge or rather a lookout point?

*****How can the concept of the land bridge be seen through the different relationships presented in the story? Examples?

***Why do Tito and Senior Martinez seem to experience the most conflict in relationship? Are they at opposite ends of the bridge from one another?

Senior Martinez relates to Mexico and his past as something that still colors his identity.

Ancestry and tradition are important to Senior Martinez. Why? How do they relate to his crossing or the concept of the land bridge?

·       224 “There were tears in his eyes, partly from the pride he felt in this tradition of valor in war.”

·       223 “My father fought with Pancho Villa”

·       222 “Not help Tito, I thought, but help me.”

Why does Senior Martinez assume that he serves as “El Patron” for son? Why does he not understand Tito’s flagrant “act of rebellion?”

·        223 “I should have never let him go to college,” Senior Martinez said. “That’s where he gets such crazy radical ideas. From those rich college boys whose parents can buy them out of all kinds of trouble.”

·       “Even when [Tito] and old Vicente had quarreled about Tito going to college instead of working full-time, the old man had grudgingly come around to seeing the wisdom of it.” (suggests downward assimilation)

·       226 “You’re my only son, and damn it! Sons are supposed to obey their fathers!”

Senior Martinez has used the land bridge to cross over. Should his identity be described as public or private (both)? Is Senior Martinez fully assimilated or unassimilated in a cultural sense? Examples / Explanations?

How does Tito assert his right to assimilate and take on characteristics more closely associated with the dominant culture?

·       222  “He just finished his examinations at the state university” (Senior Martinez speaking of Tito)

·       226 “’El Patron, El Papa, and Dios,’ Tito said with a trace of bitterness.”

·       227 “I just have to take a stand along with thousands of others.”

***Although Lola and Tito both seem more assimilated than Senior Martinez, Lola’s relationship with Senior Martinez is very different. How? Why? How does this relate back to the concept of crossing or the land bridge (or does it)?

·       221 “When I arrived home, they were sitting politely in the living room talking banalities”

·       222 “Without so much as a glance at Lola, he said, ‘Why don’t you go to the kitchen with the other women.’”

Lola occasionally fights back in the only way still respectful to her father. How? When?

·       221 “When she could no longer stand it, she’d give her father a blast: ‘You never talk to me about anything important, you macho, chauvinist jumping bean!’ Then it would escalate to nastiness from there.”

·       224 “There was that nothing white bread that presses together into a doughy flat mass instead of the tortillas Papa thrived on…There were no ordinary vegetables like beans and potatoes and carrots, but funny wiggly long things…and quivering cubes of what must have been whale blubber.”

However, Lola is eventually the one who is able to start the healing in the relationship between father and brother. What is the purpose of Lola’s questioning and uncovering of the past? How does she know this strategy will work (or does she)?

***Are Lola and Emiliano’s respective places on the land bridge more temporary than that of Tito or Senior Martinez? Can (or does) their relationship as husband and wife exemplify both tradition and modernity?

Lola is more bold and assertive in her relationship with her husband than with her father.

·       224 “’You’d better get that, Emiliano,’ Lola said, daring me to refuse by her tone of voice and dagger-throwing glance.”

·       225 “’You should have made him come back with you,’ Lola nagged at me that night.

·       227 “’Because they aren’t signing women,’ Papa said in disgust. But from the look on Lola’s face, I’d pick her over him in any war.”

***Emiliano and Tito share an interest and respect for academia.

·       221 “I was lecturing to a mid-afternoon summer school class at Southwestern U.”

·       223 “[Registration for the draft] had been the topic all during summer school at Southwestern U.”

They meet on common assimilated ground by breaking bread together in the most “American” of ways, while the father remains locked into tradition.

·       225 “Two blocks later Tito finally climbed into the car after I bribed him with a promise of dinner at McDonald’s.”

·       225-226 “Since I had only one late morning lecture, I would pick up Tito, feed him a Big Mac or two, then bring him to the house. Lola would fix Senior Martinez some nice tortillas and chili, making up for that abominable dinner of the night before last.”

***What do the closing paragraphs suggest regarding the respective identities and futures of both father and son?

·       228 “I shook their hands as they boarded the bus, and watched the two similar faces, one old, one young, smile sadly at me though the window as the Greyhound pulled away.”