Chicanx Literature

Chicanx Literature (see note on language on main page for this novel) can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century, when writers such as María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (The Squatter and the Don, 1885), wrote about struggles in California between Mexican ranchers and newly arrived Anglo farmers.

Works by Ruiz de Burton and other writers of the period responded to the redrawing of national boundaries that occurred with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848.   In this treaty, which ended the Mexican-American War (1846-48), the Rio Grande became the boundary between Texas and Mexico.  The U.S. also acquired California and vast areas of what are now New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, Wyoming and Colorado.  The treaty gave Mexican citizens within those areas the choice between remaining in their homes, with the option of full American citizenship, and moving across the new border to Mexico.  Those who stayed were allowed to maintain their property rights even if they chose not to become American citizens.  Over 90% of this population elected to stay where they were (often on lands that could be traced back many generations).  Indigenous peoples who had originally inhabited the territories under discussion were not compensated in any way in the treaty.

 

The Chicano Movement of the 1960s, also known as El Movimiento, was a struggle for civil rights and empowerment for Mexican-Americans. Chicanx literature and art emerged out of this movement as activists created their own publishing outlets, such as Arte Público Press, which published Viramontes’s collection The Moths, and Chisme Arte, where Viramontes served as a literary editor.  Chicanx writers increasingly gained access to more mainstream publishing houses as Chicanx Studies departments began to emerge at colleges and universities and the importance of Chicanx history, art, and literature became more widely acknowledged.

 

The Use of both Spanish and English in Chicanx Literature

Many Chicanx writers have chosen to incorporate Spanish into their English-language writing as a way of reflecting the realities of living with and speaking two languages.  Some choose not to translate these phrases and words, which has caused some controversy with readers who don’t know Spanish.  While some publishers provide a glossary in the back of the book, others respect the view of some Chicanx writers that leaving Spanish words and phrases untranslated is more true to Chicanx experience and reflects the bilingual history of the American Southwest, a history that is often denied in the present day.

 

Border Theory

With the emergence of Chicanx Studies in American universities, thanks to the activism of faculty and students seeking to open up the literary canon to the diverse voices of American writers, a body of literary and cultural theory developed exploring the effect of geographical and linguistic borders on individual and national identity.  Chicanx feminists in particular have explored the way that Chicanx identity and experience intersect with gender.

One of the most prominent theorists to broach these questions is Gloria Anzaldúa, whose book Borderlands, La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987) had a profound effect on the study of American literature.

 

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute, 1987.

In this book, Anzaldúa examines the meanings of the border to Chicana identity, looking at the ways that living with both external and internal  borders both wounds the self and leads to new, creative possibilities.  Anzaldúa writes in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza:

“These numerous possibilities (of how to see herself) leave la mestiza floundering in uncharted seas. In perceiving conflicting information and points of view, she is subject to a swamping of her psychological borders. She has discovered that she can’t hold concepts or ideas in rigid boundaries. The borders and walls that are supposed to keep the undesirable ideas out are entrenched habits and patterns of behavior; these habits and patterns are the enemy within. Rigidity means death. Only by remaining flexible is she able to stretch the psyche horizontally and vertically. La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move towards a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and towards a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.” (50-51)

Anzaldúa calls the above concept la conscienzia de la mestiza, the consciousness of the mestiza, the multi-racial, multi-national, multi-cultural woman.

Think about the above passage as a possible description of Estrella in Under the Feet of Jesus.

 

The Story of La Llorona

There are several references in the novel to the story of La Llorona (The Weeping Woman).  This story, which originated in Mexico, has been taken up and recast by many Chicana feminist writers.  While the story has many variations, it often refers to a woman who drowns her children as revenge against her unfaithful husband.  Upon realizing her children are dead, she then drowns herself.  Denied entrance to heaven because of her murderous act, she becomes a ghost who must exist forever between life and death.

Like many folk stories, the story of La Llorona has many interpretations.  Some say that by telling their children stories of this ghost by the edge of the water, parents kept them safely away from the danger of drowning.  Others say the story has been used to keep women quiet about their unfaithful husbands.  Others see her as a powerful figure who refused to accept male dominance and took action against it.

How do you see the story functioning in Under the Feet of Jesus? Does the meaning change throughout the story?

Other there other Mexican or Mexican-American folk story references in the novel that you’ve noticed?

 

Chicanx Artivism

In 2008, theorists Chela Sandoval and Guisela Latorre took this concept further to develop another concept–artivism— which describes combining art with political activism.  They write,

“Multidimensional meaning systems, as Anzaldúa argues, create the foundation of Chicana/o social activism. Like our definition of artivism, la conscienzia de la mestiza, she contends, must provide access to a myriad of cultures, languages, and understandings, thus requiring the ability to negotiate multiple worldviews. Chicana/o artivism, like la conscienzia de la mestiza ,expresses a consciousness aware of conflicting and meshing identities, and uses these to create new angles of vision to challenge oppressive modes of thinking.” (83)

–“Chicano/a Artivism: Judy Baca’s Digital Work with Youth of Color.” Learning Youth and Ethnicity: Youth and Digital Media. Ed. Anna Everett. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008

Sandoval and Latorre refer to artivist work by Judy Baca, but the connections of Chicanx art and literature to activism are rooted in the very beginnings of the Chicanx Movement in the 1960s, when supporters of  César Chávez (1927-1993) and other farmworker rights activists (who ultimately formed the United Farm Workers) created art, poetry, installations, and music to further the cause.  Here is a photograph of César Chávez:

An example of artivism is Esther Hernández’s poster called Sun Mad, which emerged from her own experience with her family’s struggle for farmworkers’ rights in the San Joaquin Valley in California:

Think about this poster in relation to Estrella’s thoughts about the image on the “red raisins box” in Under the Feet of Jesus. This passage appears on pages 49-50.

Here’s a trailer from an upcoming documentary called Song for Cesar about the musicians involved in the farmworkers’ rights movement:

trailer from Song for Cesar

Here is an illustration by Andy Zermeno (1962-1993), who did many illustrations in support of the United Farm Workers:

How does he use art to show the difficulty of the labor?

 

Pesticides, Health Care, and Farmworkers’ Rights

Under the Feet of Jesus is in some ways a novel about pesticide exposure and lack of access to health care for agricultural workers who on the one hand may have to travel many miles to reach an understaffed clinic and on the other may not want to report sickness or injuries because of fear of deportation.  Even if they have documents declaring their right to be in the U.S., they may be detained, imprisoned, or even deported because of their occupation and skin color.

Among the estimated two million agricultural workers in the United States, physicians diagnose 10,000 to 20,000 pesticide poisonings each year.

“NIOSH Pesticide Poisoning Monitoring Program Protects Farmworkers.” DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number 2012-108 (Department of Health and Human Safety, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health).

From: farmworkerjustice.org:

“There is no national surveillance system for acute pesticide illness reporting and no surveillance system for tracking chronic illness related to pesticide exposure. 30 states require health professionals to report suspected pesticide poisoning, but many incidents go unreported due to a number of factors, including workers’ failure to seek medical care, workers seeking medical care in Mexico, medical misdiagnosis, and health provider failure to report. Factors deterring farmworkers and their families from seeking medical care for pesticide illness include lack of health insurance, language barriers, immigration status, cultural factors, lack of transportation, lack of awareness of or exclusion from workers’ compensation benefits, and fear of job loss.”