Political Influence

            In reading the book Dreaming in Cuban, it’s remarkable to see how politics, especially relations with the United States, play such a big role in the plot of the book and the lives of the different characters. In my view, politics are something that a person doesn’t have much control over.  I’m not saying that a person shouldn’t suggest how they believe a country should be run, but have come to realize, through taking various classes and learning about political systems, that the people in charge of politics are the ones who have grown up having the power and have certain connections with those currently in charge.  We citizens of the United States may think our decisions to elect politicians really influence who’s going to be in charge, but in reality, do we have much choice to choose who we want?  I did not think that George W. Bush was the best person to be elected as the last president, and yet I had to learn to live events I didn’t necessarily have control over.  Dreaming in Cuban is a novel that explores these questions of control and power, especially in looking at how different characters support either the U.S. or Cuban governments.

Cuban Sugar Cane Field (Courtesy of Reuters.com)

            In the novel, Celia is a devout supporter of the Revolution in Cuba and is a big fan of El Líder, Fidel Castro.  Her ardor leads her to become greatly involved in the revolution as she cuts field sugarcane for Cuba and serves as the judge for the People’s Court, where she is elected by the people (pages 111-112).  Not only is Celia engaged with doing her duty as a member of the Revolution, she also has a certain affinity for El Líder.  She is drawn by his power, and many times thinks of him as a kind of lover (110).  For Celia, then, power is important as she likes being involved specifically in the role of her country.

            Lourdes, in contrast to Celia, dislikes everything about the Revolution.  In coming to the United States, she has embraced the new heritage she has found, including the possibility of using an “adopted language” and losing all part of Cuba (page 73).  She likes having her own business and relishes the chance to continue expanding, as she opens another Yankee Doodle Bakery (page 138).  Lourdes is also a little obsessed with other “American” traditions, such as barbecuing everything and participating in various holiday customs like the annual Thanksgiving DayParade (page 137).  Lourdes, then, is drawn in with the chance she has to control her own life.

            Despite the power both Celia and Lourdes plug into, though, their political dreams and preferences interfere with the happiness of the extended family.  Celia has a tough time coming to terms with her husband Jorge’s death, and suffers various mental breakdowns, such as when Lourdes and Pilar find her sitting motionless on her porch upon their arrival in Cuba (page 217).  Lourdes, too, never seems to be happy with her family since coming to the United States, as Pilar is a rebellious child and Rufino spends his time working on various inventions (page 20).  In this way, then, the unhappy circumstances that both of these women find themselves in relate to something they don’t really have control over, or the different political establishments in both nations and the long-range effects they have on various citizens.    

Identity Search

            The book Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quiñonez takes place in El Barrio, the section of New York City where many Puerto Ricans live.  Even though Chino, the main character, has experiences much different from those in the Mexican texts we’ve read in this class so far, it’s interesting to see how the search for self-identity is a theme that is carried on through most of our readings.  In the Mexican literature, defining self had much to do with finding a place in white American society while also learning to retain Mexican heritage and values.  This is also a problem Chino faces in Bodega Dreams, although he has to cross different borders than the physical and familial ones addressed by Bless Me, Ultima, The Guardians, and The Devil’s Highway.  Chino, instead, must learn how to deal with keeping up appearances with his old ‘pana’ Sapo and his boss Willie Bodega, along with his pregnant wife, Blanca.  Even though Chino becomes involved with Bodega in order to help Blanca and his family, it ends up backfiring on him after Blanca can’t stand being left in the dark whenever Chino makes a family decision.  Chino, then, ends up having identity conflict between how he wants to appear to his friends and his wife. 

Aurora Levins Morales

            A similar identity search can be seen in Aurora Levins Morales, one of the Puerto Rican poets whose poem “Child of the Americas” we read for class.  In this poem, she reveals her search for sense of self as both a Puerto Rican and an American, even though she isn’t fully part of either culture. In the same way, she not only looks at herself as a writer, but also sees herself as an “activist, a healer, a revolutionary.”  Despite having these dreams, she has a chronic disability that keeps her from traveling extensively.  Because of this, she cannot pursue all of these self-ideals, but instead has to learn to live with the recurring theme of a split identity.  

My Mirror's Reflection

              I stare intently at myself in the mirror.  Dark brown eyes stare back at me.  The eyes of both my mother and father, framed by a mass of wavy, shoulder-length, chestnut hair.  My nose and lips are petite, and my right ear is slightly larger than my left.  My skin is pale, made that way by the dim, winter sun.  In the summer, it will regain its tan hue.  My reflection is a mixture of many different traits that define me: White-German Mennonite, Farm Girl, and Midwesterner.  All of these traits mixed together make me North American.

My family at Zion National Park, Utah

              I continue to stare, fascinated, into the mirror.  I see my cluttered desk, covered with textbooks, pens, and the weekly letter sent to my entire family by my Grandma Kempf.  Looking more closely, I see the pictures of my friends and family, tacked up on the bulletin board behind my binders.  There is one of my family standing in front of a waterfall in Zion National Park, Utah, with our exchange student from Germany, Milena.  Another shows the backyard of my childhood, complete with a homemade swing set and a jumbo trampoline with a mini-basketball hoop attached to the protective net surrounding the black mat.  A final picture portrays my roommate and I standing in front of a cow at the Kansas State Fair.  With it comes a poignant reminder of my past two years on the plains at Hesston College; two years where time did not stand still, but raced ahead, mocking me to try and catch it.  Two years that taught me to embrace my past, while also diving head-first into an uncertain and laborious future.

Kansas State Fair

            My mirror reflects things treasured by the unique American in me.  It reveals rich Mennonite traditions, sweltering summers on the farm, and the excitement caused by the perfect Husker volleyball set-up that wins the game for the national championship.  I see my mom and dad helping out in the confined kitchen at my country church, Salem Mennonite.  The tables are set up in the narrow basement along one wall, and as I finish putting chairs around each one, the plethora of crock pot dishes, hidden in the nearest classroom, begin to appear on the main table.  I see the haze of a summer morning disappear as the sun breaks the plane of the sky, revealing the endless blue above a fluttering corn field, drenched in the thick dew of the night.  With the field comes the smell of unspoiled dirt, beginning to thicken to mud as the life-giving water flows down each row from the dusty aluminum pipes.  My mirror catches a glimpse of me watching a Husker volleyball game on TV as a fifth grader, enthralled by the perfect execution of the most difficult plays.  Five years later, I am in the Qwest Center arena in Omaha, Nebraska, caught up in the exhilaration of the record breaking crowd of 17,000 fans as the Huskers win the final point and are crowned NCAA National Champions. 

                 I see downtown Shickley, bustling at 12:00 noon on a Saturday.  Workers are coming into town for their lunch breaks, their pick-ups parking in front of either the green awning of Dawg’s Café or the black and white striped of Cubbie’s Market.  Looking further, I see the local swimming pool teeming with kids, as the one hundred degree temperatures soar.  I see my grandpa driving his red pick-up with the white stripe out to the farm office to pay bills.  Oh, I can see so many treasured things!

            Then, as I look deeper into the mirror, geographical boundaries melt away.  Times and places blend.  I incredulously see the rhythmic flow of both the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans for the first time through the eyes of my former self, amazed by their magnificence.  My mind runs back through various family vacations of exploring North American wonders: Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone National Park, the sequoias, Mount Rushmore, Pike’s Peak, the Cascades, the San Antonio Riverwalk , Washington D.C.  I see my North American legacy showing itself in all different shapes and forms, ranging from the diversity of the subways in New York City to the unique sloping of endless sandhills in sparsely populated western Nebraska.

My view of the Limmat in Zurich

            I see the legacy of my Mennonite Heritage: the monument to Menno Simons hidden in the tiny village of Witmarsum, Holland; the plaque remembering the execution of Felix Manz in the Limmat River of Zurich, Switzerland; the pictures of my grandpa’s twenty-year-old self building a dam in South Dakota for civilian public service during World War 2. 

            I look even further.  I see the influences of John Howard Yoder and his non-violent views in The Politics of Jesus.  I see the depiction of immigrants settling eastern Nebraska in My Antonia, written by Nebraska native Willa Cather.  I see the impact that music has had on my life, ranging from the a cappella hymns of my childhood to the endless country played on many Midwestern radio stations.  I hear the local stories of my past.  I hear about my mom as a child, scrubbing out turkey barns with her bare hands.  I hear about my grandpa walking two miles through fields on his way to school every morning.  I listen to the excitement of my older cousins reliving the time they backed Sylvia, the 1980 Chevy, propane-powered pick-up out of the irrigation lane at forty miles per hour. 

            I look into the mirror and capture more than my reflection.  I see that I am more than pale skin, brown hair, and brown eyes.  The mirror shows me a beautiful, rich, and unique heritage that is a part of me, my essence.  In fact, I see that I am, in reality, a reflection of this heritage.  Wherever I go, I can do so with pride, knowing what I am and where I have come from.  I carry the stories of my past and they reflect and intermingle with my aspirations for the future.  Indeed, I know that the changing self reflected in the mirror, will always proudly reflect the essence of myself.    

Eduardo C. Corral

                Eduardo C. Corral was born and raised in Casa Grande, Arizona, and, surprisingly, grew up outside the influence of easy access to literature.  After attending Arizona State University, though, he discovered his love of writing poetry and eventually received his master’s degree from Iowa Writer’s Workshop.  While reading Corral’s poetry, it was very interesting to compare his overarching themes to ones that have been explored so far in Latino Literature class.  Besides including traditional themes, Corral’s work presents explorations into the question of identifying sexuality, as he is openly gay but grew up in a machismo community where this was ridiculed.  These poems by Corral in the anthology The Wind Shifts, then, can be appreciated by readers who want a glimpse of Latino lifestyle and history in both traditional and new ways because the poems explore borders, self-identity, and family values, mixed in with sexuality.

                 Borders are a prominent theme in Latino Literature, whether they are the psychological alienation experienced by those who must live within a society who doesn’t recognize them as equals, or the physical walls that exist on the U.S.-Mexican border.  In Corral’s poem To a Mojado Who Died Crossing the Desert, the tragedies that take place along the physical border in between the United States and Mexico are addressed.  This is an ode to a crosser who has died in the desert wilderness.  When reading this poem, though, the reader gets an eerie sensation that feels like forgotten death, or the desert calling out for more sacrifices: “the sand calls out for more footprints” (line 84).  The repetitive use of the word “hush” (lines 5, 12) and abstract similes like “a mouse can be torn open like an orange” (lines 10-11) contribute to this sensation of forlornness. 

            The title of this poem also reflects the border theme, as a “mojado,” the equivalent to “wetback according to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, is a person who crosses a border through a body of water.  It is interesting to look at whether this poem is celebrating or disapproving of what the desert is doing to the travelers who are dying on their way to the U.S.  Because of this ambiguity of meaning, it is difficult for the reader to determine what impression of borders the author is trying to create through this poem.  Is a border a natural part of life that should not be reckoned with? This poem poses the elusiveness of this idea. 

            A second overarching theme in Latino Literature is that of the search for self-identity.  The poem called Poem After Frida Kahlo’s Painting “TheBroken Column” reveals the process of Kahlo’s search for her own identity through painting self-portraits.  The poem is divided into twelve chapters of differing lengths: the longest is a full paragraph and the shortest is three words.  In a way, the chapters create separate borders in the poem itself!  This poem is also very abstract, and the images, again, give the reader a mysterious feeling when they read it.  The Broken Column, on which this poem is based, is a self-portrait done by Frida Kahlo.  Kahlo was the wife of Diego Rivera, a renowned Latino artist, but also faced much suffering throughout her life, beginning with the time when as a teenager she was involved in a car accident that cracked her spinal column in several places.  Her suffering from this accident can be seen in The Broken Column, which portrays her half-naked in a desert setting, her bare skin pierced with nails.  Corral’s usage of the color red throughout this poem gives the impression of these piercing nails, by using images like “a ruby ring on her finger,” (line seven) “I want to find the perfect shade of red,” (line twenty) and “an hourglass of blood” (line fifty-four). 

            Through writing this poem about Kahlo searching for self-identity, Corral is also suggesting his own search for self-identity.  Growing up as a Chicano in the United States and a gay man in a machismo culture has been especially difficult, as he said in an interview with the Web del Sol website.  With this knowledge, it is interesting to see if Corral’s poem about The Broken Column suggests an individual who has found an identity or who is still searching.  The final line “a mirror remembering water” (line 59) can be taken either way.

            A final literary theme that has been found throughout this class is that of the value of family and relationships, which, in Corral’s case, also relates to finding sexual identity.  The poem Ditat Deus is written in two chapters: the first in prose form and the second with poetic stanzas.  The second chapter discusses how his father taught him to love a man when he was a boy.  This is very interesting because it seems as if the father in the poem is only allowing his son to do activities that any son would do with his father, such as helping him shave in the morning and unlacing his work boots in the evening. 

            The first chapter looks at how the narrator must also learn to form relationships with the rest of society, namely the work world.  The narrator is working as a bag boy at a shopping center and is told by his boss to follow around Mexicans and Native Americans to make sure they don’t shoplift.  This is ironic as the title of the poem Ditat Deus is the state motto of Arizona, meaning “God enriches.”  Questioning trust in the narrator’s own ethnic identity, then, is another factor that plays into the search for how he forms relationships with both his family and the rest of society.         

            All in all, the poems of Eduardo C. Corral explore both traditional and new aspects of Latino culture.  Through looking at borders, self-identity, and family values mixed in with a search for sexuality, Corral’s poems are very rich for any reader who wants to experience a new type of American literature.  

Why Study Literature?

            In one of my classes during the first week of school, we discussed the importance of studying literature, especially that of a specific group of people.  Our class eventually decided that literature describes the history of a people through giving them a voice to tell it in their own manner.  Because history from textbooks and articles about current events tend to be written from just one perspective, it is important to read accounts of a culture written by people from the culture itself that give it a more accurate and greater dimension.  Novels and other forms of realistic fiction or non-fiction, such as the books Bless Me, Ultima, The Guardians, and The Devil’s Highway show the themes from Chicano literature through the eyes of people who have actually encountered border issues, etc.  Journalism is not able to convey to the reader what it feels like to experience the stages of heat exhaustion, as Urrea did in The Devil’s Highway, or to have such different life expectations from mother and father, as Antonio did in Bless Me, Ultima.  In short, then, literature gives more life to a group of people than journalism ever can through relaying real-life experiences in a way that the reader can personally connect. 

           

            Through taking this class, I have learned a lot about Mexican/Latino culture and how it relates to American culture.  When we talked about our different identities in class, it was interesting to see how many people came to the United States because of displacement, or to build a better life for family.  In a way, then, each person could write a different story of their own experiences or culture.  Everyone’s story is important, whatever culture, and the best way to convey experiences is through a writing style that brings the original story to life again.    

Becoming a Person

            One of the lines that struck me the most from the novel The Guardians was a quote by Regina, the protagonist, who is talking about the dreams undocumented persons have when coming to the United States: “We [Regina and her mother] had to get our papers in order. That’s all every immigrant in the world wants, to get her papers in order.  To officially become a person” (116).  For me, it is very hard to put my head around the idea that my social security card or my passport officially makes me a person.  In this story, though, that is the conflict of Gabo, whose life is established in the United States even though he is not an official citizen because he does not have papers.  His father, Rafa, is also facing this dilemma, though he does not want to permanently live in the States, but earn enough money working to build a “casita back home” for his family (116).  Regina was lucky to attain her papers through her marriage to a U.S. soldier, or maybe she was just doing what she had to do to survive. 

            The little piece of paper that gives permission for a person to legally work or reside in the United States is also a recurring issue in the book The Devil’s Highway, namely because all 26 of the men attempting to come into the country do no have this piece of paper.  Because they believe that working in the United States will bring them wealth like their neighbors, (46) they are persuaded to follow the coyote in taking the supposedly easy trek through the mountains and desert, which they think will be “a walk in the park” (58).  This walk, however, turns out to be much more dangerous than described, as shown by the results of their mission:  death or near death. 

            What if these men had attempted to apply for a work visa to legally enter and work in the U.S.?  Even for workers who are looking for a non-permanent job, the process of legally entering is still a lengthy process.  According to the Work Permit Website, for a foreign worker who is not the executive of a company or who does not have a school degree of some sort, getting chosen to work abroad is unlikely.  An employer in the U.S. must first of all demonstrate that there is a lack of U.S. citizens to fill the jobs that are vacant in his/her company.  After the need is established, it can take from two to six months for a candidate to get transferred to the U.S. using a non-immigrant visa.  From there, they can eventually apply for a green card when they have begun their job.  But what if you are not chosen for the job?  What is the next step?  For many, such as the men from Veracruz, it is putting trust in a system (the coyote system) that is not picky in choosing only “skilled workers” to come to the United States.    

Misinformed?

          While watching this movie, I, like many other students in our Latino Literature class, was astonished to see how many residents of Prince William County made their decisions to support the ‘Probable Cause’ mandate based on so few facts.  When citizens used arguments such as “illegals don’t speak English” and “9/11 was caused by illegals,” they forgot to notice that the crime rate in the area had gone down since Latinos had come to the area and that many businesses were also doing very well.  I wonder, though, if knowing these facts before enacting the law would have made any difference to those in support.  Because Letiecq, one person, had so much influence over how citizens viewed this new mandate through his blog, many people were only getting their information through one, biased source.

            It seems as if Arizona’s new law, 1070, is one almost exactly like the mandate of Prince William County, Virginia.  The section that allowed police officers to check immigration status based on ‘probable cause’ was repealed because it was thought to be a form of racial profiling, such as we saw in 9500 Liberty.  Despite the elimination of this section, though, the bill will give out harsher penalties for those found harboring illegal immigrants, etc.  (See link above).  Even though critics say that 26,000 illegals have already been deported from Arizona since 2007 without the law, 1070 is still in effect right now.  This article also says that around the rest of the United States, a majority supports the law.  How is this overwhelming support even possible with the deportation of so many illegal immigrants already?

            I believe that one of the reasons we U.S. citizens appear misinformed is because of how daily news information is attained.  I learned from John Sharp, my history professor at Hesston College, that reading through different newspapers and news websites in order to pick up more than one angle of any news story is one of the only ways to pick up important information in the least biased manner.  Even though I am sometimes guilty of quickly skimming through one source to get news, I believe that exposing myself to both points of view allows me to make a more informed decision.  Listening to people, too, who have actually experienced some of the effects of harsh immigration laws is also important, for they are the best ones from which to receive a version of real-life events that is consistent with reality. 

            It is very important to be informed before making a decision.  What would have happened if the United States had known what they were getting themselves into before they entered Iraq?  Were they trying to find the terrorists responsible for 9/11 or were they trying to get rid of Saddam Hussein, who they had supported during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s?  Because U.S. citizens can have such a big influence on who runs the government and what decisions the U.S. makes concerning domestic and foreign policy, knowing all the facts if vital.  This can be said for any other organization as well.  As a member of Mennonite Church USA, I struggle to comprehend what will happen to the church body after deciding to hold the 2013 National Convention in Phoenix.  Did the board not research the potential calamities that could result from this decision?  Hopefully, the outcomes won’t be too disastrous.