Under the Feet of Jesus (1996)
Currently a professor of English at Cornell University, Helena María Viramontes (born in 1954) grew up in a working-class family in East Los Angeles, where she become involved in the Chicano/a Movement, which had a profound effect on her development as an activist and writer. Her writing reflects not only the impact of her childhood experiences in East Los Angeles, but the influence of farmworker rights activist César Chávez (to whom she dedicated Under the Feet of Jesus) and the United Farmworker movement. Her acclaimed collection of short stories, The Moths, was published in 1985 by Arte Público Press, a highly recognized publisher, based at the University of Houston, founded by Nicolás Kanellos in 1979 to provide an outlet for Latino/a and Hispanic authors blocked from mainstream presses by discriminatory publishing practices. Viramontes was early on part of the movement to encourage and support writing by authors of Mexican-American descent. She worked for an published in ChismeArte, an avant grade Chicano magazine. In 1988, she co-edited with María Herrera-Sobek a collection of creative writing and literary criticism focused on writing by Mexican-American women. Her work is now widely read, studied, and anthologized, and she is considered one of the most important living American writers.
A note on language
The term “Hispanic” is used primarily by people of Spanish descent who live in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and some parts of California because it emphasizes their historical and familial ties to their Spanish heritage. “Chicano/a” tends to be used by Mexican-Americans who identify with the Chicano Movement, which, beginning in the 1960s, worked for civil rights for Americans of Mexican descent. Many in the Chicano/a movement sought to base their identity not in European Spanish heritage but in the blending of Spanish and indigenous cultures that happened throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States from well before the arrival of English settlers up to the present time. “Latino/a” is usually used to refer more generally to North Americans who trace their heritage to Latin America, whether Mexico, Central, or South America. More recently, to avoid the binary gender implied in such terms as Chicano/a (where the “o” ending denotes masculine and the “a” ending feminine), writers and scholars have begun using the terms “Chicanx” and “Latinx.” The use of “Chicanx/Latinx” aims to include both those who wish to claim Chicanx identity, with its political and regional history, and those who may trace their ancestry to other parts of Latin America besides Mexico.
List of Main Characters (though the other characters are also important):
Estrella—a teenaged girl, about to turn fourteen. She has a growing attraction to Alejo.
Alejo—A sixteen-year-old boy who has come from Texas with his young cousin, without their parents, to work in the grape fields. He is sprayed by pesticides and becomes very ill.
Petra—Estrella’s mother, who has worked in agriculture for most of her life. She has four children besides Estrella and is pregnant with her sixth child. She was left alone with the children by her first husband. She keeps the children’s proof of American birth “under the feet” of a Jesus statue she carries from place to place. She insists on taking care of Alejo.
Perfecto—Estrella’s step-father. He lost a previous wife and baby in Mexico and thinks often of returning. He has a green card to work in the U.S. Reluctantly, he drives Alejo to a local health clinic. The whole family comes along.
The Nurse—The only employee present at a local health clinic.
Here’s a video of Viramontes talking at the 12th Annual Latino Book and Family Festival at California State University at Los Angeles:
Viramontes on what it means to write “universal” characters
Selected Other Works by Viramontes
The Moths and Other Stories (Arte Público Press, 1985)
Chicana Creativity and Criticism: Charting New Frontiers in American Literature, co-edited with María Herrera-Sobek (1988; University of New Mexico Press, 1996, 2nd Edition)
Paris Rats in East L.A. (screenplay produced by American Film Institute, 1993).
Their Dogs Came With Them (Atria/Simon and Schuster, 2007)
Important Links:
Contexts for Under the Feet of Jesus
Literary Form in Under the Feet of Jesus
What is the Way Forward Out of the Past?
My Close Readings of Passages From the Text:
Close Reading Viramontes Page 136: The Scale
Close Reading Viramontes Page 135: Two Frisky Kittens
Passages for Close Reading Assignment (Choose One):
Under the Feet of Jesus Passage #1
Under the Feet of Jesus Passage #2