"Space, Place and Cultural Visibility: Barrioization and Barriology in Mario Suárez's Short Stories"
Program
Ph.D. in Spanish and Portuguese
College
Arts and Sciences
Student Level
Doctoral
Location
Student Union Building, Ballroom C
Start Date
8-11-2021 11:00 AM
End Date
8-11-2021 1:00 PM
Abstract
Mario Suárez (1923-1998) a keen observer, short story writer, polemical essayist, aspiring novelist, devoted educator, informed activist, and tenacious editorialist does not stand as a well-known writer. Preferring to be concise and meticulous, a perfectionist, he was more interested in human character than pure craft. Born and raised in the Chicano barrio of Tucson, Arizona and as one of the most important short story writers of Mexican descent from the early mid-twentieth century, Suárez figures as a unique case of an early Mexican American writer to create a distinctively Chicano literary space. Among the many early league activists who carved a space for the Mexican American literary canon, Suárez undertook the daunting task of recording, retaining, and writing the unique cultural aura of postwar in barrio life. Keenly portraying, describing, and writing about a barrio in Tucson called El Hoyo -like many Mexican American barrios to be considered as wastelands- this desertic milieu of America inspired him to pay close attention to its inhabitants and their mannerisms, customs and habits, their language, tendencies, and unique folklore. This study has a two-fold purpose, (i) to highlight the work of the early mid-twentieth century Mexican American writer Mario Suárez and (ii) to show how through his fiction Suárez creates a "barriological" incision against the U.S. spatial practices active in barrio life which have "placed" Chicanos in the material and symbolic geography drawn by the visible hand of urbanizing capital (Villa, 2000, 4).
Jorge's Poster
"Space, Place and Cultural Visibility: Barrioization and Barriology in Mario Suárez's Short Stories"
Student Union Building, Ballroom C
Mario Suárez (1923-1998) a keen observer, short story writer, polemical essayist, aspiring novelist, devoted educator, informed activist, and tenacious editorialist does not stand as a well-known writer. Preferring to be concise and meticulous, a perfectionist, he was more interested in human character than pure craft. Born and raised in the Chicano barrio of Tucson, Arizona and as one of the most important short story writers of Mexican descent from the early mid-twentieth century, Suárez figures as a unique case of an early Mexican American writer to create a distinctively Chicano literary space. Among the many early league activists who carved a space for the Mexican American literary canon, Suárez undertook the daunting task of recording, retaining, and writing the unique cultural aura of postwar in barrio life. Keenly portraying, describing, and writing about a barrio in Tucson called El Hoyo -like many Mexican American barrios to be considered as wastelands- this desertic milieu of America inspired him to pay close attention to its inhabitants and their mannerisms, customs and habits, their language, tendencies, and unique folklore. This study has a two-fold purpose, (i) to highlight the work of the early mid-twentieth century Mexican American writer Mario Suárez and (ii) to show how through his fiction Suárez creates a "barriological" incision against the U.S. spatial practices active in barrio life which have "placed" Chicanos in the material and symbolic geography drawn by the visible hand of urbanizing capital (Villa, 2000, 4).
