Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

Publication Date

8-31-1978

Abstract

One of the most patently visible facets of Chicanos' efforts to assert themselves through a form of cultural nationalism has been a burgeoning corpus of creative literature which, above all, has served as a vehicle of self-knowledge. In their task of accumulating evidence for a collective self-portrait, Chicano writers have explored their past, revitalized and mythesized their cultural values, indicted Anglo culture and confronted the question of what it means to be human. In this study I have examined the works of a small group of writers whose most distinguishing and isolatable feature is their use of Spanish as a vehicle of expression, postulating that their reasons for doing so bear far-reaching cultural and political implications. While it is true that all of these writers, Sabine Ulibarrí, Rolando Hinojosa, Sergio Elizondo, Tomás Rivera, Alejandro Morales, Miguel Méndez, and Aristeo Brito are professional Hispanists, it would be unfair to dismiss their preference for Spanish as an elitist movida. The dangers implicit in such an attitude are painfully clear-­access to a very limited audience. Their motive, I believe, is a sincere desire to restore the mother tongue from oblivion at the formal level-- a step Albert Memmi stresses--that occurs with the acquisition of a political consciousness on the part of colonized people. Though these writers may for the moment appear to be writers in search of an audience, there remains the hope that bilingual education will eventually become a productive reality for Chicanos, thus assuring a future audience for those writers who choose to document their memories, indignation, hopes and visions in Spanish. The works of Sabine Ulibarrí, Tierra Amarilla, and Rolando Hinojosa, Estampas del Valle y otras obras, manifest a predilection for Hispanic costumbrismo. Sabine Ulibarrí weaves yarns about an idyllic golden childhood and narrates the dramatic struggles of a young man to overcome the overbearing shadow of his dead father. Estampas del Valle reveals a self-conscious writer who depicts the lives of the people of fictitious Belken County in their most human moments, showing that life is composed of the daily insignificant events and that, in the larger scope of human existence, the cyclic patterns of culture carry ultimate significance. Sergio Elizondo in his epic poem, Perros y antiperros, wages a literary battle against Anglo society, claiming that in the end, the humanistic values of Chicano culture are worth far more than "un siglo de motores." In ... Y no se lo tragó la tierra Tomás Rivera creates a paradigmatic model for Chicanos, urging them to exorcise the demons of superstition which stand in the way of their evolution toward self-determination. The work of Alejandro Morales, Caras viejas y vino nuevo, is unique in that the focus shifts from a collective to an individual protagonist. Memories of a disintegrating barrio are narrated in a seemingly chaotic fashion, fusing the sordid and the lyrical in a rich portrayal of urban barrio life. Miguel Méndez in Peregrinos de Aztlán uses multiple narrative techniques, fragmentation of space and time, and a masterful recreation of presentational language to weave a mosaic of human suffering, and seeks in the paradigms of myth to create a transcending symbol capable of illuminating the future for those peoples who populate the no man's stretch of land designated arbitrarily as the Mexican-United States border. The most recent work written in Spanish by a Chicano author to be examined in this study is Aristeo Brito's El Diablo en Texas. Historical-autobiographical in scope, the key aesthetic integrating factor in El Diablo results from the merging of the symbols of folklore and historical confrontation to create a work rich in mythical meaning.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

First Committee Member (Chair)

Tamara Holzapfel

Second Committee Member

Sabine R. Ulibarrí

Third Committee Member

Rudolfo A. Anaya

Fourth Committee Member

Dick Charles Gerdes

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