Who would have thought it would end with a body to remember with

As a Language major, the number of English literature classes I can take is limited and I already took them all last year! I am glad that this course did not fall under the same category. I enjoyed being in this class!

Who Would Have Thought It? almost scared me away but I ended up writing about it for Wikipedia and reading a lot of the critiques gave me a sense of appreciation of Ruiz de Burton’s work. Sometimes, when I edit the article on Wikipedia, I feel somewhat of an anonymity that I think Ruiz de Burton initially wanted. Maria Ruiz de Burton would use Mrs. Henry S. Burton in the publication of her books and we use different names to sign into Wikipedia.

As I was writing on the book’s portrayal of religion and how it was used to distinguish Lola from the Irish Catholics, I realized that Alvarez too finds the need to distinguish the girls from the Irish population. Although this course is about Chicana identity, reading the novels gave me a sense of an overall immigrant experience.

There seems to be a lot of motivation for immigration as well such as the constant renegotiation of the demarcation of borders in Who Would Have Thought It? the harvest in … y no se lo trago la tierra, political motivations in El Puente de Brooklyn, marriage in Woman Hollering Creek and Pinochet’s dictatorship in and a Body to Remember With

I think it was such a treat to have Carmen Rodriguez come and talk about and a Body to remember with and share her insights on why a writer chooses to write a work of fiction instead of an autobiography.

and a body to remember with

I think that each author has an interesting description for their ambiguous hybrid position. Alvarez embeds the motion of a yoyo in one of Yolanda’s names and Rodriguez describes the “moving back and forth” as “teeter-totter” in her foreword. As I read Black Hole, I noticed that the conversations were one sided. Estela’s letter to her mother has no response and only one voice can be heard in the phone conversations. The voice of the other person is embedded with what the other one decides to repeat.
My eyes widened when she used the identifiably Canadian pragmatic marker “eh”, spelled “color” with a “u” and mentions Vancouver landmarks such as Stanley Park, City Hall, the seawall at Burrard, etc. I was enjoying reading about the landscape I live in. And I found myself relating to Estela’s dreams. She dreamt of Vancouver landmarks within the Chilean geography. I would often dream of being inside our Manila house here in Vancouver. It was almost as if there was no clear dividing line between the two countries and I would wake up confused, wondering where I was for the first few minutes. I guess my position too is ambiguous even though I am not an immigrant, being sent to Vancouver to study.
The way Rodriguez wrote is more direct and less descriptive than Alvarez’s style. I find it to be effective in the first person narrative. I am finding it difficult to put the book down!

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

I have noticed that novels we read in this class are increasingly resembles something poignant to the one we read previously. The fragmented structure of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents is similar to Woman Hollering Creek and other stories but the vignettes of this novel explicitly state the perspective from which the story is told in the beginning of the chapter. Sometimes, all four of the girls are the protagonists of a story, offering multiple perspectives on life in the United States and Dominican Republic. Similar to Woman Hollering Creek and other stories whose characters straddle the line between the United States and Mexico, having one foot on each side, Alvarez’s novel (unlike Rivera) also names the characters of the story. Each of the sisters have a name and a pet name and the people around them are distinguished with unique names such as Illuminada and Altagracia. The names seemingly function as an indicator of class and the pet names of the girls, such as Yo for Yolanda explicitly refer to the first person.

Although each of the girls each have names, their mother confuses them and attempts to resolve the situation by assigning a particular color to them almost as like how the colors of a flag are representative of a nation. The attention to color seems to be an important aspect of this novel. It begins with visual descriptions of Yolanda’s coming home party.

That story also hints at a matriarchy, indicating that the widowed Tia Carmen was the head of the clan. I am interested to see if this turns out to be a feminist novel. One of its similarities to Cisneros’ novel is a daughter’s defiance to a father’s wishes. Sofia packs her things and flies to Germany after her father confronts her about the letters from her German boyfriend. One of the women in Cisneros’ novel also defied her father to be with her husband. Alvarez’s character more explicitly feels exiled. He only goes to her house to visit his grandchildren and although Sofia threw his seventieth birthday, he mentions all her sister’s names but fail to mention her’s during the games.

Woman Hollering Creek

The run-on sentences and fragments mirror the non-linear structure of the book, resembling an oral history of a Chicana community. Although the structure is relatively unconventional it is effective in portraying an oral tradition or perhaps a manifestation of memory. The voices of the characters almost seem to come alive in "Little Miracles, Kept Promises". The word orders of the little prayers mimicked Spanish grammatical rules and Cisneros seemed to create somewhat of a hybrid of both languages and perhaps create something that is neither Anglo-American or Mexican but instead, something that is identifiably Chicana.

The novel also demythisizes the typical Chicana image by portraying them as "the passive virgin, sinful seductress, and traitorous mother." (Wikipedia) Most of the anecdotal stories are told from the perspective of women and portray the men as misogynists. One of the few that are not told by women is "Los Boxers". A widowed husband has been seemingly domesticated after his wife's death. He discusses ice cubes as a miracle solution to all stains. It is interesting to read how he remembers his wife through seemingly mundane chores and how the wheels have turned and he has taken a more feminine role.

Los Boxers, along with most of the stories, seem to be a critique of marriage. The husbands all seem to have mistresses and at times have kids outside their marriage. With the protagonist of "Los Boxers", there seems to be a bit of ambiguity. He is telling the story instead of the wife.

Woman Hollering Creek

The book has a rather unusual structure. The stories seem to be chronologically compiled from childhood to adolescence and adulthood; however, each story has no explicit beginning or end. The stories open by identifying the main characters by their names and the protagonist seems to shift with every story. If the stories are told by the same narrator, she introduces herself indirectly through her tocaya. She seems to demarcate the borders by offering a birds-eye-perspective on her identity, negotiating her location between borders.
Cisneros seems to represent her position between Anglo and Mexican culture, “el otro lado- on the other side” by juxtaposing the Spanish words with the English words. Although she uses Spanish words once in awhile, I think this is the first time she placed them side by side.

I think it is interesting to see a book structurally similar to … y no se lo trago la tierra and find a poignant difference- the importance of naming stressed and how names function book. It reminds me of Who Would Have Thought It and how nearly all characters have names. Julie, the only surviving canary, symbolically trades places with Lavinia who ends up caged by the corruption of the ideological American dream.

I think Woman Hollering Creek and other stories ties all our reading together with its similarities with the other books.

Borders

I was in a film studies course prior to this class and I remembered one of the required reading was Michael Cieutat’s account on Mexican iconography. “On the one hand, there was a Mexican Catholic, subject to a harsh social hierarchy (from hidalgo to peon, crushed by tradition… on the other, the American Protestant on racial purity, rejecting miscegenation, unlike the Mexican who accepts the mestizo.”

Religion seems to be poignant issue regardless of the period in which the novel is set. Ruiz de Burton uses Catholicism to distinguish Spanish Catholics and Irish Catholics through Lola’s refusal to sleep beside Mrs. Norval’s Irish maid. The boy in Rivera’s novel seems to have a problematic relationship towards religion. Rivera juxtaposes images and ideas.

The novels also better informed me of Chicano history. The theory of Manifest destiny was reflected in Who Would Have Thought It? and migration seemed to be the pressing concern in ...y no se lo trago la tierra before it was published in the 1970s.

I have enjoyed the books we read so far. They constantly questioned the concept of borders and its fluidity. In my introduction, I had restricted myself in defining North American literature and in a way confined myself within a personal border. By reading Ruiz de Burton, Marti and Rivera, I now have a better understanding of North America in its entirety.

… y no se lo tragó la tierra

I was looking at the cover for quite awhile, trying to find the words to describe the book entirely. I started thinking that what appeared to be a dragon might actually be “el Diablo”. But I thought the devil did not come despite the boy calling him.

The book uses dialogue to portray events in the boy’s life. Dialogue with the unseen such as the devil, the ramble in the boy’s head and the conversations in the truck all seem to have a communicative effect that reaches beyond the conventional narrative. While I was reading “Cuando lleguemos”, I felt like I could almost hear the voices of the people in the truck. They resemble streams of consciousness. Their inner thoughts are so diverse yet limited to that of the adults only. The readers do not know what the children are thinking. The book has been told from the perspective of a young boy trying to understand the adult world. Like most things in this book, the dialogue seems to be confined within the minds of the adults. And through Rivera’s writing, their voice is heard.

... y no se lo tragó la tierra

The book tells stories in a non-linear manner. It was almost as if I could pick any given chapter and rearrange the book. Then I realized that each anecdote is placed in that particular sequence because each one relates to other, similar to a chain. The last sentence of “El año perdido” introduces the next story by mentioning the things the protagonist sees and hears before he sleeps and the untitled second story picks it up by mentioning spirits. Perhaps it parallels to the ghosts that the protagonist of the first story hears. The second story mentions a glass of water and “Los niños no se aguantaron” pivots on the loss of water and life. The connections between them are very subtle and it is almost as if Rivera wants the readers to make these connections on their own.

Perhaps each character’s personal struggle relates to another’s or maybe their struggles affect each other in ways they do not realize. A few things are left ambiguous. It seems as if the things that are not mentioned are the most powerful ones. Some anecdotes remain untitled. The table of contents identifies them by the first few words of the opening sentence but they do not function like a real title. It seems like a conscious decision on Rivera’s part to also make these anecdotes shorter than the titled ones to distinguish its importance.

Many characters remain nameless almost like a blurred memory or the loss of something so basic. The first story preludes to it with the title pertaining to loss and the loss of words on the protagonist’s part. In a way, the book reflects the lack of precision when it comes to memory. Sometimes things are forgotten like the untitled story of the soldier’s mother on page 13. Her son “está perdido en acción.”

The book’s lack of chronology allows the readers to empathize with the characters. There were times when I felt confused because of the book’s lack of sequence and the unnamed characters. I was not sure who was doing what. Perhaps the migrants felt the same way, disoriented and insignificant.

Perhaps the lack of chronology also mimics something that adults find insignificant- the act of collecting. As young children, we collect various objects, such as rocks, shells, etc. to familiarize ourselves with the landscape. Similarly, the various stories function as a collection that help the readers identify the land seen through the migrant workers' children.

El Puente de Brooklyn

Martí presents New York through an understanding of its architecture. He constructively describes the Brooklyn Bridge as a structure that was created from points on a piece of paper. It is almost surreal that a few dots became a bridge and that same structure became dots again through his vivid description. His use of quasi-technical words reflects the strength of the materials used to build the bridge.

Different kinds of steel were used in the construction and Martí names each of them precisely. I depended on my dictionary until I saw “hierro” and realized that some of the construction terminologies were phonetically the same in colloquial Filipino but orthographically different and reading out loud would be the best way to approach the text.

The bridge symbolically fortifies the link between people regardless of their race. The structure bridges the spatial gap, allowing the people to freely go from one point to another. Personally, the text provides an intrinsic link between two languages.

The novel seems to stay true to its title. Who would have thought it would end with a beginning? In its final chapters, the story seemed to shift its focus from the older generation to the younger generation. The story highlights the newly established relationships such as the marriage of Ruth Norval and Julius Caesar Cackle, the alliance between Hackwell and Ruth and possibilities such as a union between Julian and Lola.

Dr. Norval fades into the background. We hear about his opposition to sending Mrs. Norval to the asylum but we do not actually hear his words. In fact, this is the one of the few times he has been mentioned since his return. Mrs. Norval looses her capability of speech.

It is quite interesting that his return was marked by silence. Burton restores the status quo through Mrs. Norval’s mysterious illness. She interfered with Dona Medina’s wishes for Lola to have plenty of jewelry. Fortune’s wheel seems to have tuned. Now, her existence is muted. Dona Medina was fortunate to have her will documented but Mrs. Norval is not that lucky. Ruth complains “Isn’t is provoking that pa won’t let me have a handsome wedding?” Dr. Norval, who was mostly absent in their lives, is left to make the decisions on his own.

Dr. Norval seemed to have gained control through Mrs. Norval’s powerless state. The novel seems to be concerned with acquisition through deprivation. Mrs. Norval and her daughter’s dressed themselves in the finest silks at Lola’s expense. Hackwell tried to win Lola like a piece of property through blackmail.

He tricked her into pretending to be his wife. With Julian’s help, Lola is able to escape to Mexico. This probably the only time she was victorious throughout the entire novel. And she achieves it though deception. They led Hackwell into assuming that Lola was aboard the Dove.

What I Would Have Thought

As I scratched the surface of the pink book, it revealed a brilliant shine similar to na Hala’s rough pebbles. The story seems to occur on different levels, the surface story being the lives of the Norvals, their adopted Spanish child and the people around them. Gossip surrounds the adoption of Lola. Some link the increasing acquisition of the Norval’s wealth to the possibility that Lola directed them to gold. Reverend Hackwell contributes to more talk about the family through his sermons.

The novel is filled with all sorts of communication. Perhaps it is the author’s conscious choice that the story begins with a conversation between Reverend Hackwell and Reverend Hammerhead. But perhaps the unspoken should be given more attention to what is said.

Dr. Norval had asked Lebrun to transcribe the final words of Lola’s Mother. The letter gets lost and ends up in the dead-letter office. Isaac, Dr. Norval’s brother-in-law, stumbles upon the letter and decides to keep it.

A series of questions surrounded the disappearance of the letter in my head. It is almost too coincidental that a series of Isaac’s misfortunes ultimately leads to his discovery of the letter. At certain times, the author also makes her presence known for the second time by writing “[w]e will give a whole chapter to her patriotism in due” (69) despite the novel being written from a third person’s perspective.

The close proximity between the association between omnipotence of the narrator and God makes the author’s interventions almost seem miraculous. Perhaps it mirrors confusion. Is it the parent’s decision to choose the religion for the child?
The brilliance of the novel is seen through underlying layers of questions as such. Because of Lola’s dark complexion, Mrs. Norval automatically assumes that she is only either of African or Indian descent. She does not take into account any other race that falls in the non-white category nor is she interested in finding out. But perhaps the bigger question is that of class. Does social standing (defined by wealth) matter more than race or gender? Mrs. Norval was willing to be Lola’s servant after seeing the gold, diamond and opals. She even entertained the idea of being Lola’s mother-in-law. Perhaps on the same level, Dr. Norval thinks class is the bigger discrimination as well. He says that through Lola’s wealth, the color of her skin will melt and she will find a suitable husband.

Introduction

Hola a todos!

My name is Nicole and I am a fourth year English language student. Studying literature outside of North America seems very interesting because it challenges the conventions I am used to. I just couldn't leave the world of Academia without the knowledge this course has to offer.

Nicole