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HISTORIA CHICANA 7 April 2014

National Hispanic Forum December 2, 2013

CHICANO LITERATURE: SHAPING THE CANON

By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca Scholar in Residence (Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Public Policy), Western New Mexico University

ne of the difficulties in building a Chicano literary canon is that,

unfortunately, Chicano texts are often assessed for inclusion or exclusion

in that canon by many who cannot really give an accurate measure of their

worth. Most often what is offered (or proffered) is a highly idiocritical judgment

that tells us more about the judge than the work being judged. Still, someone must

make a decision about which texts ought to be in the canon.

It is true that some of the early builders of Chicano literary canon established suffocating strictures for

canonization that made few "saints" possible. In the main, those strictures required that works dubbed as

''Chicano literature" identify the enemy, promote the revolution and praise the people. In the beginning

of the Chicano literary movement these strictures posed two considerations that dealt ambivalently with

ideological needs and literary merit.

In the Fall of 1969, however, these strictures and considerations posed no dilemma whatsoever for me

as I set about to teach the first course in Chicano literature in the country at the University of New

Mexico as part of an assortment of course offerings in the fledgling Chicano Studies Program headed

by Louis Bransford. What was needed for the course were texts I naively presumed would be easy to

find. It was that naiveté that led to my study of Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature

(University of New Mexico, 1971), the first literary inquiry in the field of Chicano literature, which I

undertook from 1969 to 1970 and out of which grew my concept of "The Chicano Renaissance." Many

of the Mexican American literary works I found and surveyed for that course (and later for the study)

were in various libraries whose nooks and crannies I scoured, but many were in private collections

difficult to get to. The wonder, though, is why no one before had looked at Mexican American writing

collectively as a literary tradition, studied it and given it a taxonomical structure from which to discuss it

critically and historically as an integral part of the Mexican American experience and of American

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literature.

The course was successful beyond my expectations despite the obvious lack of Chicano literary canon

and the paucity of works readily available for instruction. I winged it not knowing I was winging it, for I

approach-ed the course from my traditional preparation as a teacher of English and years of experience

in the field developing new courses. But this course was different. Many of the historical texts I thought

suitable for the course were woefully out of print. Contemporary works were difficult to secure in

quantities sufficient for the enrollment of the course since many of them were published ephemerally by

"small" presses or in garage presses like Raymond Barrios' The Plum, Plum Pickers. One of those small

presses was Caravel Press.

Despite these shortcomings—or perhaps because of them—I began to frame a taxonomy for Chicano

literature in 1969 that has held up surprisingly well in the last four decades. Following my lead, some

years later Luis Leal chose different milestones for the taxonomy but, by and large, the original scheme I

offered continues to be a guide to the roots and traditions of Chicano literature.

Taxonomically I conceptualized Chicano literature as a continuum of two pasts, welded together by the

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo on February 2, 1848. The first part (pre-1848) included the "literary roots"

of Chicanos (Indian, Spanish and Mexican); the second part (post-1848) included the "literary

traditions" of Chicanos (Mexican American and American). The literary precursors of the Chicano

Renaissance emerged during the period from 1848 to 1966, the first year of "The Chicano Renaissance."

We have grandfathered those precursor Mexican American writers and made them Chicanos since their

contributions to the Chicano renaissance are of enormous importance and value.

What strikes me now as most peculiar about assumptions a propos Chicano literature was the naiveté

that attended their genesis. In 1966 Chicano writers like Tomas Rivera, Estela Portillo, Rolando

Hinojosa, Rudy Anaya, Dorinda Moreno, Richard Vasquez (to name but a few) were still years away.

Nevertheless, out of that proffered taxonomy came my quest for Chicano literary roots and traditions

and the growing consciousness that literary production by Chicanos since 1966 manifested something

akin to a "renaissance" much like the literary ferment of the Southern renaissance of the 1930's or the

Harlem renaissance of the 1920's or the Irish renaissance of the 1890's. For it seemed to me, what I

observed was an efflorescence in every sense of the word—a "reaffirmation" of Mexican American

identity via cultural arts. Unfortunately, the term “renaissance" was freighted with ideological

difficulties which I will not rehearse here, suffice to say it lent heat (if not light) to the semantic

difficulties a number of Chicanos had with the word “renaissance”—a term they equated with having

been asleep.

It's difficult to say just when a literary phenomenon like the Chicano renaissance began and equally

difficult to say just when it ended—if it has ended at all as some Chicano critics contend, for there has

been substantial production of literary works of high merit by Chicanos since 1975, the year I've used as

the terminus for the Chicano Renaissance. The starting point, 1966, is not an arbitrary date, for it was in

that year that a group of Chicano intellectuals (mostly from colleges and universities) met at Occidental

College in California to examine and to discuss the conspectus of Chicano intellectual thought against

the background of the emerging Chicano Movement. Out of that meeting came the kernel for the

creation of Quinto Sol Publications and the literary review El Grito: Journal of Contemporary Mexican

American Thought which appeared in 1967. Giving closure to such a period of literary efflorescence is

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difficult, I know, but it seems to me that 1975 marks a turning point in the impetus which gave rise to

that literary “boom.” The chronological boundary markers I've chosen to demarcate the Chicano

Renaissance have nothing to do with quality or the caliber of Chicano literary works. The boundaries

simply mark a time-frame during which the fervor of literary creation focused on Chicano nationalism

and the idealization of "Aztlan" (nation-state of Chicanos, a name appropriated from the mythic

homeland of the Aztecs and which Chicanos located in the American Southwest in the states annexed by

the U.S. after its war with Mexico) as a motive theme for Chicanismo--a brotherhood that would create

Chicano unity.

Ironically, California proved to be the fuse of the Chicano Renaissance that Aurora Lucero hoped New

Mexico would produce. In 1953 she wrote optimistically: "There now remains but one renaissance to be

effected--the literary. With the happy accident that New Mexico possesses more traditional literary

materials than any other Hispanic region it should be possible to bring about such a rebirth in the

reenactment of the lovely old plays, in the keeping alive the lovely old folk dances and in the singing of

the old traditional songs.'' But the Chicano Renaissance came into being not in relation to the quaint and

traditional Hispanic past of the Mexican American Southwest but in the wake of growing awareness by

Mexican Americans of their Mestizo past and their sociopolitical status. The Chicano Renaissance was a

people's coming of age, long overdue, which, like Milton's unsightly root which, in another country,

bore a bright and golden flower.

By 1970, when I moved from New Mexico State University [where I spent most of the 60's] to the

University of Texas at El Paso as professor of English and founding director of Chicano Studies [first

such program in the state of Texas and 3rd in the nation], the Chicano literary vistas of Chicanos in

American literature [the handful of us] focused on Jose Antonio Villarreal, John Rechy, Floyd Salas,

Mario Suarez, and Daniel Garza. The list included also Aurelio Espinosa, Jovita Gonzalez, Arturo

Campa, Nina Otero, Fray Angelico Chavez, Aurora Lucero and America Paredes.

From the locus of those days the peaks of Chicano literature were barely apprehended. The literary

landscape of the United States was devoid (and barren) of Chicano writers (except for the few just

cited). Even those writers, however, were not to be found in the standard (canonical) texts of American

literature, certainly not in the Cambridge History of American Literature nor the Literary History of the

United States. A few were found in special anthologies like Our Southwestern Writers edited by Mabel

Majors, Rebecca Smith and Thomas Pearce. Works like Life and Literature of the Southwest by J. Frank

Dobie made passing referen-ces to Chicano writers (identified primarily as Spanish Americans). In

every respect, though, the lineup of American literature did not include Chicanos—still doesn't!

This was, then, in 1969, the state of affairs in Mexican American literature [the word "Chicano" was still

eschewed by most Mexican Americans]. I prefaced Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature by

pointing out that the study represented but a skeletal view of Mexican American literature, that it was

an explora-tion in literary archaeology, and that what was proffered was much like the representations

we see of dinosaurs in museums, made life-like from deductions, inductions, abductions and subductions

of bits and pieces of the animals found here and there. We don't really know what woolly mammoths or

mastodons looked like. Or saber-toothed tigers. Or pterodactyls. Or early man. The taxidermic models

we see in museums are what we think they could have looked like from the way we've pieced together

the scant evidence (bones) we've found. In literary history, as in archaeology, there is always a lacuna

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(discontinuity) in need of exploration, illumination and interpretation. It's obvious that in 1969 our

sources for Mexican American literature were manifold but our texts were meager.

Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature was the first Chicano effort to construct a historical

chronicle of Chicano Literature, from its antecedents to 1971.Archaeologically speaking, the “digging”

was arduous. I felt like an old-time aviator, flying only by the seat-of-my-pants on "dead reckoning."

Extending the analogy, that early work of mine was like the first "aeroplane" the Wright brothers "flew"

at Kitty Hawk. What followed the Wright brothers was easier. Aviationists could see what a "better"

aeroplane needed. But "better" aeroplanes were not possible until the first aeroplane "flew." For

example, speaking about a San Francisco writer, journalist and editor of Hispano-America, Jorge Ulica

(1880-1926), ["found" by Dr. Clara Lomas in 1978], Luis Leal sums up the archaeological literary find

as follows: "How is it possible that such a rich prose has remained undiscovered for so long? More

importantly--perhaps unpardonable, we might add--how many more Ulicas are lying about in dusty bins

of libraries or the yellowed pages of old newspapers? Until they are found, like Ulica, we cannot speak

definitively about a history of Chicano literature" [translation mine].

Charles Tatum agrees, adding that "along with other writers like him, Ulica should figure prominently in

any future reconstruction of Chicano literary history." Indeed, finding the works of Ulica and other

writers like him shed light on the lacunae about which I spoke in 1971, the "missing links" in the

history of Chicano literature. Jorge Ulica's prose remained "unfound" for so long because we needed

first to "create" the frame-of-reference, the concept of a history of Chicano literature and then a canon of

Chicano literature, into which Ulica's prose could fit or cannot fit.

And there lies the thrust of this piece: How to "fill" the lacunae of Chicano literature? How to shape the

canon? We knew more about Chicano literature in 1990 than we did in 1969. Twenty-one years after

Kitty Hawk we knew considerably more about heavier-than-air flight. Regardless of the configuration

(shape)-­ piper cubs, C-47's, 747's--airplanes have certain aero-dynamic features in common. So too, the

works which we identify as Chicano literature contains certain literary features in common.

Generally speaking, Chicano literature is that body of literary production (some call it "cultural

production") written by Chicanos. Some Chicano critics add that it must reflect a Chicano

consciousness, which is why in some accounts of the Chicano novel, for example, writers like John

Rechy and Floyd Salas are excluded. Yet in some of Rechy's novels, City of Night and Numbers, and

Salas' Tattoo the Wicked Cross, there are strong glimpses of the Chicano presence, though not

articulated as such. In the wider view of Chicano literature, Rechy and Salas are both Chicano writers

whose novels do not deal specifically with the Chicano experience, just as some of Frank Yerby's novels

do not deal with the "black experience" though he's a Black writer.

Attempting a definition of Chicano literature reminds me of Lao Tzu, the Taoist philosopher writing

some 2500 years ago, who explained that "the Tao that can be expressed is not the real Tao." Yet I'm

loathe to suggest that one needs to be Chicano to really understand Chicano literature. But the Irish poet

Yeats sensed a comparable parallel when he realized that to really understand Irish literature one had to

be Irish. Still, "national' literatures have a way of transcending boundaries and borders.

In the 1960's Chicano literature emerged as a means by which Chicanos could find their own voice, their

own sense of being Chicano, not Spanish, not Mexican, not American, but Chicano. As it emerged from

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the cauldron of Chicano nationalism, the role of Chicano literature was to reflect Chicano life and

Chicano values, drawing from a Chicano imagination distinctively Chicano. That many of the early

works of Chicano literature were inspired by ideological needs did not lessen the expectations that the

responsibilities of Chicano writers were ultimately to create a literature so essentially Chicano that it

stood on its own merits, apart from other literatures. Chicano literature was to free Chicanos from the

burden of American history and its libelous account of Chicanos and their ancestors. Like the disciples

of Senchan Torpeist, the fabled Irish poet of myth, who were sent out to recover the whole of the Tain--

the great Irish saga--which none of them could remember entirely, Chicano writers were the "disciples"

through whom the lost inheritance of Chicanos would be recovered.

What passed for Mexican American literature in the 60's tended to be material that put Mexican

Americans and their Mexican kinsmen in a bad literary light, as Professor Cecil Robinson pointed out in

his work With the Ears of Strangers. Mexican Americans were inaccurately and superficially

represented in literature, movies, television and other mass media, sometimes by well-meaning

romanticists who distorted the image of Mexican Americans for the sake of their art. Mexican

Americans were characterized at both ends of a spectrum of human behavior--seldom in the middle--as

untrustworthy, villainous, ruthless, tequila­ drinking, and philandering machos or else as courteous,

devout, and fatalistic peasants who were to be treated more as pets than as people. More often than not

Mexican Americans were cast as bandits or as lovable rogues; as hot-blooded, sexually animated

creatures or passive, humble servants.

Literary portraits of Mexican Americans by Anglo American writers have exerted extraordinary

influence since 1848 down to our time on generations of Americans who have come in contact with

them. Disparaging images of Mexican Americans were drawn by such writers as Richard Henry Dana,

who, in Two Years Before the Mast, described the Mexicans of California as "an idle, thriftless people"

who could "make nothing for themselves." In 1852 Colonel John Monroe reported to Washington

"that the New Mexicans are thoroughly debased and totally incapable of self-government, and there is

no latent quality about them that can ever make them respectable. They have more Indian blood than

Spanish, and in some respects are below the Pueblo Indians, for they are not as honest or as industrious."

In 1868, The Overland Monthly published an article by William V. Wells in which he wrote that "in the

open field, a charge of disciplined troops usually sufficed to put to flight the collection of frowzy-

headed mestizos, leperos, mulattoes, Indians, Samboes, and other mongrels now, as in the time of our

war with them, composing a Mexican Army." In our own time Walter Prescott Webb characterized

Mexicans as possessing" a cruel streak" he believed was inherited partly from the Spanish of the

inquisition and partly from their Indian forebears. On the whole," he went on, "the Mexican warrior . . .

was inferior to the Comanche and wholly unequal to Texans. The whine of the leaden slugs stirred in

him an irresistible impulse to travel with, rather than against, the music. He won more victories over the

Texans partly by parley than by force of arms. For making promises and for breaking them he had no

peer."

Mexican American youngsters were taught about the cruelty of their Spanish forebears and the

savagery of their Mexican-Indian ancestors; they were taught about the Spanish greed for gold, of the

infamous Span-ish Inquisition, of Aztec human sacrifices, of Mexican bandits, and of the massacre

at the Alamo. Sel-dom, if ever, were they told about the other men at the Alamo, their Mexican

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kinsmen--unknown and unsung in American history--who were killed fighting on the Texas ·side for

independence. American children have still probably never heard of such men as Juan Abamillo,

Juan Badillo, Carlos Espalier, Gregorio Esparza, Antonio Fuentes, Jose Maria Guerrero, Toribio

Losoya, Andres Nava and other Texas Mexicans at the Alamo. Information about the literary

accomplishments of Mexican Americans from the end of the U.S. War with Mexico (1848) to the

present has been nil in American literary texts. Editors and writers of American literary texts have

excluded or minimized the literary achievements of Mexican Americans, first, and Chicanos later, for

reasons ranging from jingoism and racism to ignorance and disdain.

It would be immodest (and inaccurate) to suggest that the "renaissance" took shape (not place) because

of Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature. Essentially, the "renaissance" was the product of

multiple forces converging on the literary consciousness of Chicanos, including the forces of jingoism,

racism ignorance and disdain. To my knowledge, though, the first time the expression "The Chicano

Renaissance" appeared in print was in my article titled "The Chicano Renaissance" in the May

1971 issue of Social Casework. In retrospect that piece seems strangely out of place among the

assortment of essays collected in that particular issue of a professional journal for social workers,

focusing on the Chicano search for social justice. That too was the focus--though not exclusively--of

the essay "The Chicano Renaissance," social justice from a literary perspective. Perhaps the expression

"The Chicano Renaissance" then to describe the literary efflorescence of the Mexican American

Southwest may have been a premature designation for what was, obviously, an amorphous (and

acephalous) literary movement. Nevertheless, that was the first time the expression "The Chicano

Renaissance" was used as a concept of a critical piece about the literary "boom" then manifesting its

sonic presence in Chicano literature and about the literary legacy of Chicanos. Though it was an

important first piece in an emerging discipline, "The Chicano Renaissance" appeared slightly half-way

past the decade that was to ultimately bound the Chicano renaissance (1966-1975).

While that essay was more historically descriptive than analytical, more exhortative than critical, it did

assail the closed canon of American literature--closed in 1971 to minority writers (including Chicanos)

and not much open now. It is important to point out, however, that the canon of American literature had

been assailed earlier by Chicanos, in 1967, in the editorial of the premier issue of El Grito [produced by

Quinto Sol Publications], the first literary journal of the Chicano Movement and of the Chicano

renaissance. That editorial was a "manifesto" that the Quinto Sol Writers, at least, were out to establish

their own literary canon since entry to the American literary canon was blocked off to Chicanos. Quinto

Sol writers were in the vanguard of that surging literary effort, energizing Chicano and Chicana writers

everywhere to forego acceptance by mainstream publishers since that acceptance was not forthcoming

anyway. The Quinto Sol manifesto was the first plank in the structure of a Chicano canon.

Chicano litterateurs then were still threading their way through the Chicano Movement and its tenets, the

whole process was an improvisation of a tune we all knew but for which there was still no score, no

written music. Comme d'habitude, in a scintillating tour de force Juan Bruce Novoa pointed out, in

discussing "canonical" and "noncanonical" texts, that Chicanos were "early on" [meaning the late 60's,

the early years of the Chicano Renaissance] involved in the creation of canon, despite the scarcity of

Chicano texts. Indeed, the emphasis of those early years of the Chicano renaissance was in ferreting out

Chicano texts from nooks, crannies and lofts for Chicano literature courses and for raising the literary

consciousness of Chicanos via Chicano works. Slowly, a canonical trove of Chicano literature came

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into being, bearing enormous (some might say "usurious") interest on little capital.

In 1969—as near as one could tell—there were eight (8) "published" novels by Chicanos (although

most of those writers did not identify themselves as "Chicanos," certainly not as Chicano writers nor

Chicano novelists): Pocho (1959) by Jose Antonio Villarreal; City of Night (1963), Numbers {1967),

and This Day's Death (1969) by John Rechy; Unscaled Fortress {1966) by Antonio Serna Candelaria;

Tattoo the Wicked Cross (1967) and What Now My Love {1969) by Floyd Salas; and The Plum Plum

Pickers (1969) by Raymond Barrio. That was it. Only later were we to learn about Eusebio Chacon's

two novels: El Hijo de la Tempestad (1892) and Tras la Tormenta la Calma (1892). A minyan of novels

(8 in English; 2 in Spanish) represented the efforts of Chicano writers and the art of the novel up to

1969. Over two dozen more were to follow in the decade of the 70's and scores more in the 80's,

bringing the total to more than a hundred (100) by 1990.

From the perspective of the 90's and three decades of Chicano literature it's easier to make reasonable

historical and critical assessments about Chicano writers and, say, the art of the novel. I say "the art of

the novel" rather than "the Chicano novel," for defining a "Chicano novel" is a matter of personal

judgment and perspective regardless of how elaborate or clever the explanation or criteria. The

persistent question remains: Is a Chicano novel one written by a Chicano? Since the term "Chicano" is

freighted with ideological charges and baggage, is a novel not similarly freighted by a Chicano writer

not a Chicano novel?

Some Chicano critics dismiss as Chicano novels certain works by Chicano writers because they are not

"movement" novels or don't address themselves to the social or political issues affecting Chicano

communi-ties or barrios. For example, in her commentary on the Chicano novel, Carlota Cardenas

Dwyer excludes as Chicano novels the works by Villarreal, Rechy, Salas, Barrio and Vasquez on

grounds that in their novels these writers failed "to promote a specific social or political issue"

unequivocally Chicano. In like fashion Rafael Grajeda excludes the works of Villarreal and Vasquez in

his selection of Chicano novels on grounds that "the works do not confront clearly and honestly the

implications of their premises" which are, namely, that the central characters arrive at an understanding

and acceptance of themselves as Chicanos. In Pocho, for example, Richard Rubio goes off to lose

himself in that world of confusion described by Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez in his epic poem I am

Joaquin. The novel Chicano by Richard Vasquez is excluded by both Grajeda and Dwyer because it

suffers, as they explain, from excessive stereotype. For other Chicano critics, in order for a novel to

qualify as a Chicano novel the characters must be Chicanos in whatever setting the writer chooses.

Dwyer and Grajeda's distinctions are important, however idiosyncratically those distinctions are

applied. For example, there are Black writers who write Black novels with Black themes and peopled

by Black characters; but there are also Black writers who do not write Black novels. Frank Yerby, for

one. The same is true of Jewish writers. Not all of Saul Bellows' novels are Jewish novels. Thus, a novel

by a Chicano writer is not easily categorized. I'm reminded of the classic response by J. Saunders

Redding to a question about "the Black novel." He said, "Season it as you will, the thought that Black

Americans are different from other Americans is still unpalatable to most Blacks." I suspect that's also

true about Chicanos.

But there are many of us who argue that Chicano literature is so much of a piece that it has a distinctive

center of gravity as well as its own ground of being and therefore its own esthetic. Like Addison Gayle’s

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belief about Black literature, I too believed that Chicano literature, like Black literature, had

fundamental responsibilities to praise the people, identify the enemy, and promote the revolution. I am

not entirely dissuaded of that point of view even today, but there are norms and patterns in the novel by

Chicano writers that are common not just to mainstream American literature but to world literature as

well. Yet, the novels by Chicano writers are different, not because of innate Chicano characteristics but

because Chicano writers, by and large, have emerged from a distinctive group experience in the United

States. This is not to say that that experience is uniquely different. Most writers, I daresay, have emerged

from comparable group experiences: Jewish American writers, African American writers, and others.

While each group experience may be comparable (and thus not unique), the experiences of each group

are different. For instance Jewish Americans have not been slaves in the United States nor did their

ancestors lose a war to the United States. African Americans have not suffered religious pogroms nor

have they been prohibited from speaking their home language in the schools. Yet Jews, Blacks and

Chicanos have suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous bigotry, prejudice and discrimination in the

United States. But that is not enough to say that their group experience have been the same.

A piece of literature is not just a social act--it has cultural connotations that reveal a writer's relation to

his group and to the entire fabric of society. As a cultural manifestation, a literary work inheres a sense

of audience, its language (whether English, Spanish or a combination of both) is part of a

weltanschauung shared by a community of readers. In 1863 the literary critic, Taine, asserted that works

of literature wee to be understood by considering the interrelating factors of moment, race and milieu.

Thus, the significance of a literary work lies not only in the social reality in which a writer participates

but grows out of the culture which nourishes him or her. The novel, then, is both a literary manifestation

and a cultural artifact.

The assertion that a canonical perspective of Chicano literature was premature in 1970 negates the 122-

year-history of Chicano literary antecedents in the United States. For it is not "canon" that creates a body

of literature, but a body of literature that creates "canon." A hundred and twenty-two years of literary

production by Mexican Americans (not counting the centuries of literary production in the Mexican and

Spanish Southwest from 1519 to 1848) created a significant body of literature--antecedently Chicano

literature in every way--in need of canon defined by "contemporary" Chicano perspectives. That's what

Backgrounds of Mexican American Literature sought to do.

The Chicano renaissance was but a point of literary reference in the historical continuum of a diasporic

people and a manifestation, as well, of the maturity--a coming of age in the United States--of a

Mexican American literary consciousness. Importantly, at this point, is the need to register the caution

that Mexican American/Chicano literature is part and parcel of American literature and, therefore,

part and parcel of the American literary canon. While Chicano literature has historical, cultural and

linguistic ties to Mexican literature, the canonical significance of the former to American literature

cannot be ascertained by rummaging through the canon of Mexican literature like genetic testing for

paternity. Nor can that significance be plumbed by focusing on the cultural axis between Chicanos and

their Spanish literary heritage in the Southwest.

Both the Spanish Colonial period and the Mexican period of the Southwest shed light--considerable

light--on the roots of Chicano­ literature. But we do not, for example, come to know anything more,

necessarily, about contemporary mainstream American writers by a diligent study or exposition of

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Colonial American letters. Colonial American literature informs us about Colonial American life and

culture. That we may find in the literary works of mainstream American writers the cultural values of

Colonial America simply attests to the strength of those values transmitted across the generations.

Writers produce in contexts of "moment" and "milieu" as Taine postulated. We cannot with absolute

clarity ascertain the influences of one generation of writers--several times removed--on another

generation of writers. There are no tests for that kind of literary paternity. What creates literary lineage

is "canon" and what shapes literary taste is "canon." What shapes American attitudes about the country

and its people are the canonical texts used in American education--especially anthologies of American

literature. That's how "canon" becomes important--it's the validating mechanism for acceptance.

For example, most anthologies of American literature include such figures as Anne Bradstreet (1613-

1672), Benjamin Thompson (1610-1714), Edward Taylor (1642-1729), Thomas Godfrey (1736-1763),

Philip Frenau (1752-1832), and others. The list is extensive. Strictly speaking, these writers were

English citizens, British colonials in America. Yet, we include them in our chronology of American

literature. The point I want to make is that the colonial history if the United States was no more confined

to the Atlantic frontier than its history since 1776. In the American Southwest, Spanish colonials (later

Mexicans) were also making history, keeping diaries, maintaining journals, writing letters and creating

poetry. The literary impulse of the Hispanic American Southwest was much like that of the Anglo

American Northeast. For Americans today, the geography of the Southwest lies as secure in our national

identity as the geography of the Northeast. So, too, the literature and history of the Southwest should lie

as secure in our literary and historical identity as the literature and history of the Northeast. This

identity ought to include the colonial period of the Southwest in the making of America, just as it

includes the colonial period of the Northeast in that saga.

What qualifies one to be designated a Chicano writer? Nativity? Alurista, Octavio Romano and Ernesto

Galarza were all born in Mexico. Jorge Ulica was born in Mexico. Alurista, Romano and Galarza

came to the United States when very young. Ulica came when he was forty-five. Alurista, Romano and

Galarza came young enough to absorb American culture and be part of the Mexican American

experience as they matured in the United States. Ulica spent only eleven years in the United States, from

1915 to the time of his death in 1926. Is that a long-enough period of time to "absorb" American culture

and be part of the Mexican American experience? We say that the works of Alurista, Romano and

Galarza manifest a "Chicano consciousness." Does Ulica's? Some Chicano critics like Juan Rodriguez

say they do, emphasizing that point in his "Introduction" to Cronicas Diabolicas, a gathering of some of

Ulica's prose pieces published in Hispano-America, the newspaper he edited in San Francisco.

Though not of the United States, some writers like Villavicencio from Guadalajara, Mexico, have

appeared in Chicano journals and anthologies [El Espejo]. Other writers like Amado Muro [neé Chester

Seltzer] have "wormed" their way into Chicano literature fraudulently with works some critics call

"literatura Chicanesca." What about Ulica, though? Is he a Mexican American/Chicano writer? Are his

works part of Chicano literature? Ulica's pieces are indeed "gems" of a prose style that strikes one as

contemporary in tone and topic. Published originally in Spanish, they are humorous vignettes of the

"Mexican" experience in the United States between 1918 and 1926. Some critics have praised Ulica

highly, citing him as a precursor of the contemporary Chicano narrative style in Spanish; others have

called him vain, pompous, sarcastic and condescending; and his work, without merit deserving of

10

Chicano literature. The pieces in Cronicas Diabolicas are a genre of literature called "costumbrista" in

Spanish. In English, roughly the equivalent to a "comedy of manners" in which the narrator comments

on customs, mores and tastes of a group, oftentimes condescendingly and with broad strokes of farce

and jest, much like the works of Moliere. According to Arthur Ramirez, Ulica's pieces are

"pedestrian, hardly humorous, and produced by someone who exhibits a curious ambivalence toward

Americans and Mexican Americans. In Cronicas Diabolicas, Ulica tells us about Miss so-and-so and

Mrs. such-and-such and a little about Don Fulano de tal Mr. What's-his-name), much in the manner of

the Spanish novelist Galdos writing in the latter part of the 19th century about vidas ajenas. Ulica's

commentaries are mostly about "Mexican" [note the lower-case "m"] women, meaning "Mexican

American" women, for there was little linguistic or semantic difference then between Mexicans from

Mexico or Mexicans of the United States--Mexican Americans. Anyway, Ulica's commentaries are

mostly about "mexican" women, their cultural and linguistic apostasy, and their vainglorious efforts at

becoming Americans, swapping "mexican" husbands for gringos, Anglicizing their names, and mixing

Spanish and English barbarously in an idiom he derides as "pocho."

Women are the butt of his caustic "wit." Their children who speak more English than Spanish are the

object of his hauteur. Few of the men of the Hispanic community of San Francisco are subjected to his

rapier-like scrutiny as self-appointed keeper and arbiter of what is appropriate behavior for Mexicans of

the United States and for Mexicans in the United States. He makes no allowances for the process of

cultures and languages in contact. It's a wit callused perhaps by his upper-class status in Mexico.

Born in 1870, he published his first "paper" at age ten, studied pharmacy in Guadalajara, and turned to

journalism while a student there. In 1890 he started writing for El Correo de !a Tarde [The

EveningNews]of Guadalajara, and continued as a journalist until he died. An ardent Porfirista, in 1909

he opposed Francisco Madero's efforts to oust Porfirio Diaz who had been "President" of Mexico for

35 years. By 1911 he was already dodging revolutionary forces which his anti-revolutionary stance had

ultimatly jailed him for.

In October of 1915 he fled Mexico in a boat bound for San Francisco. A month later he became editor of

La Cronica de San Francisco, a Spanish-language weekly serving the Mexican American community

there. His literary preferences may be best determined from a special issue of La Cronica in April of

1916 dedicated to Cervantes, the Spanish author of Don Quixote. Ulica left La Cronica in April of 1917

when it changed hands and returned to head it in 1919 when it changed its name to Hispano America.

Having suffered various heart attacks since 1914, Ulica died on November 15, 1926, eleven years after

coming to the United States. Was Ulica a Chicano writer? Should he be considered a Chicano writer?

Are his works Chicano works? Are they in the “tradition” of Chicano literature? Before taking up those

questions let us first review the following historical considerations.

Mariano Azuela, a medical doctor of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1921, wrote Los de Abajo [The

Underclass], a novel about that struggle while living in El Paso, Texas, where he and other

revolutionaries holed up for a spell during a reversal of that conflict. Los de Abajo was first published

serially in the newspaper El Paso de Norte. Azuela spent less than 2 years in El Paso, and at the

opportune moment headed back into Mexico. After the Revolution he became one of Mexico's leading

literary figures. Do we think of Azuela as a Chicano writer? Should we regard him as a Chicano writer

Since Los de Abajo was written and published in the United States, is the work a Chicano literary effort?

11

Is it a Chicano novel? Should it be considered a Chicano novel? Had Azuela died in the United States

would that qualify him as a Chicano writer? And what about Ricardo Flores Magon, a Mexican exile in

the United States whose literary works were published in the United States between 1904 and 1927?

Garcia Lorca, the Spanish poet and playwright, wrote some of his best works in New York while in exile

from Spain and a refugee from the Spanish Civil War. Is his play, Blood Wedding, written then, an

American play? Is he considered an American writer? An American Hispanic writer? Jose Marti, the

Cuban writer also wrote and published some of his works in the United States while exiled from Cuba

in the 19th century. Is he regarded as an American writer? Should his works be considered part of

American literature because they were written and published in the United States?

Is Alexandre Scholtzenitzen an American writer or a Russian writer? Or is he a Russian writer who now

lives and writes (in Russian) in the United States? At what point will he be considered an

American writer? Or will he? Or should he? There is a strong tradition of literature by exiles in the

United States whose works are classified as "exilic literature." The majority of works by Cuban writers

who sought political refuge in this country fit that mold. Their works (in Spanish) continue in the literary

tradition of the country they fled. Can their works written in the United States be considered part of

American literature?

There is also in this country a strong tradition of "immigrant" literature--in Yiddish, German, Polish,

Italian, Spanish and other languages. Isaac Bashevis Singer's works, for example, are American

reflections of the "old world." Some of that literature seeks to put in perspective the experiences of

immigrants in the American context. Henry Roth's Call it Sleep, Pietro di Donato's Christ in Concrete,

Carlos Bulosan's America of the Heart are prime examples of these efforts. All are written in English.

Other writers like Ole Rolvaag (Norwegian born) lived in the United States and wrote in Norwegian

about the experiences of Norwegians in the United States (Giants in the Earth). Isaac Bashevis Singer

(Nobel Prize winner) lived in the United States and wrote in Yiddish. The works of both Rolvaag and

Singer have been translated into English for American readers. Both are considered American writers.

Evidently language does not (or should not) bar a writer from being considered an American writer as

Thomas M. Pearce championed in his courageous article "American Traditions and Our Histories of

Literature" published in American Literature (14:3), November 1942. Yet, looking for non-English

language American writers in the Cambridge Dictionary of American Literature, one does not find them

where they ought to be chronologically but in an appendix for non-English language writers.

Oddly, T.S. Eliot, born in the United States, lived and wrote in England and is considered a British

writer. Julian Green, on the other hand, an American who lived in France most of his adult life and

wrote in French is considered by the French as an American writer who lived in France and wrote in

French. In the United States he is not thought of as an American writer. Richard Wright and James

Baldwin, American Black wri-ters both of whom during their lives fled to France for a while and wrote

there, are considered American writers in the literary history of the United States.

We can see that literary identity and affiliation are not ''cut- and-dried" matters, easily resolved. Which

brings us back to Ulica. He may have come to the United States as a political refugee, a temporary

sojourner in the country, waiting for the "right" moment, like Azuela, to return to Mexico. But Ulica

was a Porfirista for whom Mexico held no benign amnesty. After the Revolution, the Porfirato was

dismantled in Mexico, latifundias (estates) appropriated, lands parceled to "peones'' and the wealth of

12

the "old class'' exchequered. There was nothing for Ulica to go back to. In failing health since J914, he

resigned himself to his life of exile and dedicated himself to writing, commenting on the foibles of his

"kinsmen" in the United States whom he regarded much in need of shepherding, much in need of

manners and morals to make them respectable Mexicans in the U.S.

Ulica was a playful fellow despite a strong streak of paternalism. He demonstrates this playfulness in

one of his estampas (humorous tales) written in July 1926, just months before he died. In the story, Ulica

weaves his linguistic "high brow" into a ribald tale of a "mexican woman," Socorro, who cuckolds her

husband with a gringo named Dark, much in the same vein as Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale. Where does

Ulica fit into the scheme of Chicano literature? I would locate Ulica's works in the tradition of

American ''immigrant literature," commenting on the morals, manners and language of Mexicans and

Mexican Americans of his time and place. He was not a Chicano writer, anymore than Arturo Campa

or Aurelio Espinosa--both contemporaries of Ulica--were Chicano writers. That designation belongs to

Mexican American writers of a later time. Ulica was not a Mexican American writer either, for he did

not write in the tradition of Mexican American Literature in Spanish. He wrote in the tradition of

Mexico of which he was still a citizen when he died. Espinosa and Campa, on the other hand, both

Mexican Americans, both wrote squarely in the tradition of Mexican American Literature in English.

This is not to say that Mexican American literature is a literature characterized by its use of English.

On the contrary, during the period Mario Garcia calls "the Conquest Generation” of Transition

(1848-1912), Mexi-can American literature was more Mexican than American--"more" I said, not

"entirely"—written mostly in Spanish but accommodating an English-language thrust that became

dominant after 1912, the year New Mexico and Arizona were finally admitted to the Union as

states after an acceptable shift of Spanish-language voters to English-language voters. 1912 marks the

beginning of the Mexican American period (or "generation," per Mario Garcia), when Mexicans of the

United States (Mexican Americans) began to think of themselves more as Americans

than Mexicans. It’s the period of LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) and the push for

Americanization. It’s the period of two World Wars, various Latin American interventions and a Police

Action in Korea. Mexican Americans become military heroes, win more Congressional Medals of

Honor than any other ethnic group, fight for recognition of their military services to the United States,

organize the American G.I. Forum because a Mexican American World War II veteran is denied burial

in a municipal cemetery in Texas, go to college on the G.I. Bill, buy houses, pay taxes and agitate for

civil rights. The period lasts until 1960--the beginning of the Chicano Movement, the Chicano

generation, Chicano consciousness and the Chicano renaissance.

It is out of that consciousness that a need for Chicano literary history and canon emerges, and out of

which we search for the Ulicas to fill the lacunae of Chicano literature. As I said, much of that literature

was written in Spanish between 1848 and 1912; much more in English from 1912 to the present. Some

Chicano literary analysts, like Rosaura Sanchez have suggested that the "major literary works in

Chicano literature'' are those written in Spanish. If that's so, where does that leave the English-language­

works of Rudy Anaya, Ray Barrio, Ron Arias, Richard Vasquez, Arturo Islas, Nash Candelaria, Oscar

Zeta Acosta and others? The fact of the matter is that some of the major literary works in Chicano

literature are written in Spanish, some in English, and some in binary productions reflecting the realities

of Chicano life as an American-grown product and as a transborder phenomenon.

13

Like the British roots in the new American soil, the Hispanic literary roots yielded a vigorous and

dynamic body of literature which unfortunately has been studied historically as part of a foreign

enterprise rather than as part and parcel of the American literary heritage. What we can accurately say

about Chicano literature is that it's a literature in process, drawing from two distinct literary traditions

(Mexican and American), sometimes solely from one or the other, sometimes in a unique synthesis of

both that is truly startling and innovative. To shackle it so young with critical fetters of propensities and

velleities is to stifle it aborning. It will emerge as it emerges. And what we find of its predecessors,

here and there, in the nooks and crannies of lofts and attics, dust-covered bins of libraries, yellowed

pages of old newspapers, we welcome as prospects for a more complete background of Chicano

literature and its canon; and, ultimately, the American literary canon.

14

MEXICAN AMERICAN / CHICANO LITERATURE:

ROOTS AND TRADITIONS By Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

While Chicano Literature is identified as such only since the “Chicano Renaissance (1966-1975), the literary tradition

of Mexican Americans stretches back to the beginning of the major civilizations in the Americas (Aztecs, Olmecs,

Toltecs, Mayas). The literature of Pre-Columbian Mexico is as much part of Mexican America as the Medieval

literature of England is part of Anglo-America. This approach divides Chicano Literature into two periods: (1) Roots

and (2) Traditions.

ROOTS

I. AUTOCHTHONOUS MEXICAN ROOTS / SPANISH PENINSULAR ROOTS (0000-1521)

The works of this period are antecedently part of the literary roots of Mexican Americans. The book of Chilam Balam

and the Popul Vuh, works of the Americas before Colon and Cortez, are as important to Mexican Americans as are, for

example, El Cid or Don Quixote. This period reveals how these two literary roots figured in the development of

Mexican literature and how, in turn, they have influenced Mexican American literature.

II. SPANISH COLONIAL ROOTS (1521-1821)

This period includes those works of the Spanish Colonial presence in Mexico and what is now the Hispanic Southwest

of the United States, works of the period whose focus deals not with Mexico but with some part of what is now the

United States, comparable to the works of the British Colonial period (1607-1776) which are now considered

American literature.

III. MEXICAN NATIONAL ROOTS (1821-1848)

Continuation of the previous period except that the geography of the above is now controlled by the Republic of

Mexico. The focus here is on literary production in what is now the American Southwest before 1848, the northern

Mexican borderlands.

TRADITIONS IV. EARLY MEXICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: The Period of Transition (1848-1912)

Just as American literature really begins in 1776, so too Mexican American literature begins in 1848 with the Treaty

of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2) and the American acquisition of Mexican territory (now comprising the American

Southwest) and the inhabitants of the severed territory. This is a period of transition for Mexicans–now Americans–

towards a bilingual and bicultural lifestyle reflected in their literature–the literature of the Conquest Generation.

V. LATER MEXICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: The Period of Americanization (1912-1960)

The beginnings of this period (the Modern period of Mexican American literature) coincide roughly with the

beginning of the Mexican Civil War (1910-1921) and the exodus of one-and-a-half million Mexicans to the United

States. In this period, Mexican American literature, the literature of the Assimilationist Generation, is characterized

more by its pastoral impulse than by its efforts to come to terms with the realities of Mexican American existence.

VI. THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD AND THE CHICANO RENAISSANCE (1960-Present) Publication of Pocho (1959) marks the beginning of the Chicano period of Mexican American literature, writing

characterized by a stridency drawn from the Chicano Movement (1960). The appearance of El Grito: Journal of

Mexican American Thought in 1967 marks the beginning of the Chicano Renaissance. The Quinto Sol writers are

regarded as the vanguard of this literary movement.

CHICANO / MEXICAN AMERICAN WRITERS

AND

15

THE ART OF THE NOVEL

Mexican American Fiction and the Beginnings of the Novel

1872 Who Would Have Thought it? by Maria Amparo de Burton (Lippincot)

1885 The Squatter and the Don by Maria Amparo de Burton (Carson & Company)

1892 El Hijo de la Tempestad by Eusebio Chacon (Boletin Popular)

Tras la Tormenta la Calma by Eusebio Chacon (Boletin Popular)

1896 Vicente Silva y sus 40 Bandidos by Manuel C. de Baca

1924 Eustacia y Carlota by Felipe M.Chacon

1928 Las Aventuras de Don Chipote by Daniel Venegas (Arte Publico 1984)

1938 Conchita Arguello by Aurelio Espinosa (Macmillan)

1945 Mexican Village by Josephina Niggli (University of North Carolina Press)

1947 Step Down, Elder Brother by Josephina Niggli (Rinehart)

1959 Pocho by Jose Antonio Villarreal (Doubleday)

The First Chicano Decade: 1960-1969--Early Efforts I

1960 The Lady From Toledo by Fray Angelico Chavez (Academy Guild)

1963 City of Night by John Rechy (Grove Press)

1966 Unscaled Fortress by Antonio Serna Candelaria (Bennett)

1967 Numbers by John Rechy (Grove Press)

Tattoo the Wicked Cross by Floyd Salas (Grove Press)

1969 This Day’s Death by John Rechy (Grove Press)

What Now My Love by Floyd Salas (Grove Press)

The Plum Plum Pickers by Raymond Barrio (Ventura Press)

Afro 6 by Enrique Hank Lopez (Dell)

The Second Chicano Decade: 1970-1979--Early Efforts II 1970 Chicano by Richard Vasquez (Doubleday)

Return to Ramos by Leo Cardenas (Hill & Wang)

1971 Y no se lo Trago la Tierra by Thomas Rivera (Quinto Sol)

Blessing From Above by Arthur Tenorio (West Las Vegas, NM, School Press)

The Vampires by John Rechy (Grove Press)

1972 The Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo by Oscar Acosta (Straight Arrow Books)

The Fourth Angel by John Rechy (Viking Press)

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (Quinto Sol)

1973 The Revolt of the Cockroach People by Oscar Acosta (Straight Arrow Books)

Macho by Edmund Villaseñor (Bantam Books)

Estampas del Valle by Rolando Hinojosa (Quinto Sol)

1974 Peregrinos de Aztlan by Miguel Mendez (Editorial Peregrinos)

Two Ranges by Robert Medina (Bronson)

The Fifth Horseman by Jose Antonio Villarreal (Doubleday)

1975 The Road to Tamazunchale by Ron Aria (West Coast Poetry Review)

Caras Viejas y Vino Nuevo by Alejandro Morales (Joaquin Mortiz)

Come Down From the Mound by Berta Ornelas (Miter)

1976 Nambe--Year One by Orlando Romero (Tonatiuh)

Klail City y sus Alrededores by Rolando Hinojosa (Casa de las Americas)

16

Below the Summit by Joseph Torres-Metzger (Tonatiuh)

Victuum by Isabela Rios (Diana-Etna)

Heart of Aztlan by Rudolfo Anaya (Justa)

El Diablo en Tejas by Aristeo Brito (Editorial Peregrinos)

The Devil’s Apple Crops by Raymond Barrio (Ventura)

Chicano, Go Home by Tomas Lopez (Exposition Press)

Pachuco Mark by Rudolph Melendez (Grossmount)

1977 Generaciones y Semblanzas by Rolando Hinojosa (Justa)

Memories of the Alhambra by Nash Candelaria (Cibola Press)

The Waxen Image by Rudy Apodaca (Titan)

Don-Phil-O-Meno si la Marcha by Phil Sanchez (Alamosa)

1978 Fabian no se Muere by Roberto Medina (Bilingual Publications)

The Giant Killer by Richard Vasquez (Manor Books)

Lay My Body on the Line by Floyd Salas (Yardbird Press)

From Common clay by Adalberto Acosta (Maryland Press)

1979 Rushes by John Rechy (Grove Press)

Pelon Drops Out by Celso de Casas (Tonatiuh)

La Verdad sin Voz by Alejandro Morales (Joaquin Mortiz)

Tortuga by Rudolfo Anaya (Justa)

Jambeaux by Laurence Gonzales (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)

Letters to Louis by Abelardo Delgado (Tonatiuh)

Death of an Anglo by Alejandro Morales (

The Third Chicano Decade: 1980-1989--Later Works

1980 The Aguila Family by Tomas Lopez (Mexican American Publictions)

Pachuco By Dennis Rodriguez (Holloway)

1981 Mi Querido Rafa by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

Faultline by Sheila Ortiz Taylor

There are no Madmen Here by Gina Valdes (Maize)

The Last Deal by Laurence Gonzales (Atheneum)

1982 Another Land by Richard Vasquez (Avon)

Rites and Witnesses by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

Not by the Sword by Nash Candelaria (Bilingual Press)

The Healing Ritual by Ricardo Martinez (Tonatiuh)

Portrait of Doña Elena by Katherine Quintana Ranck (Tonatiuh)

1983 Reto en el Paraiso by Alejandro Morales (Bilingual Press)

The Valley by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

El Vago by Laurence Gonzales (Atheneum)

Bodies and Souls by John Rechy (Carroll & Graf)

Three Coffins for Nino Lencho by Armando Rico (Tonatiuh)

1984 Mi Querido Rafa by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

Muerte en una Estrella by Sergio Elizondo (Arte Publico)

The Rain God by Arturo Islas (Alexandrian Press)

Clemente Chacon by Jose Antonio Villarreal (Bilingual Press)

Dudes or Duds by Charles Aranda (Carlo Press)

The Legend of La Llorona by Rudolfo Anaya (Tonatiuh)

17

Adventures of the Chicano Kid by Max Martinez

1985 Leaving Home by Lionel Garcia (Arte Publico)

Dear Rafe by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

The Comeback by Ed Vega

Partners in Crime by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

Face by Cecile Piñeda (Penguin)

Inheritance of Strangers by Nash Candelaria (Bilingual Press)

Puppet, Margarita Cota-Cardenas

1986 The Mixquiahuala Letters by Ana Castillo (Bilingual Press)

Trini by Estela Portillo (Bilingual Press)

Claros Varones de Belken by Rolando Hinojosa (Bilingual Press)

El Sueño de Santa maria de las Piedras by Miguel Mendez (Univ. Guadalajara)

The Little Death by Michael Nava

1987 A Shroud in the Family by Lionel Garcia (Arte Publico)

1988 Rainbow’s End by Genaro Gonzalez (Arte Publico)

The Brick People by Alejandro Morales (Arte Publico)

Death of an Anglo by Alejandro Morales (Bilingual Press)

Delia’s Song by Lucha Corpi (Arte Publico)

Schoolland by Max Martinez (Arte Publico)

Oddsplayer by Joe Rodriguez (Arte Publico)

Goldenboy by Michael Nava

1989 Marilyn’s Daughter by John Rechy (Viking)

Across the Great River by Irene Hernandez (Arte Publico)

The Wedding by Mary Helen Ponce (Arte Publico)

Becky and Her Friends by Rolando Hinojosa (Arte Publico)

Face of an Angel by Denise Chavez (Arte Publico)

Kicking the Habit by Jeanne Cordova (Multiple Dimensions) The Fourth Chicano Decade: 1990-1999--Fin de Siecle

1990 Hardscrub by Lionel Garcia (Arte Publico)

Intaglio by Roberta Fernandez

George Washington Gomez by Americo Paredes (Arte Publico)

Howtown by Michael Nava

1991 The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez by John Rechy(Arcade)

1992 Eulogy for a Brown Angel by Lucha Corpi

Rain of Gold by Victor Villaseñor (Arte Publico)

Albuquerque by Rudolfo Anaya

The Hidden Law by Michael Nava

1993 So Far From God, Ana Castillo (Norton)

In Search of Bernabe by Graciela Limón (Arte Publico Press)

The Ballad of Rocky Ruiz by Manuel Ramos (St. Martin’s Press)

Happy Birthday, Jesus by Ronald Ruiz (Arte Publico)

1994 The Candy Vendor’s Boy by Beatriz de la Garza

The Memories of Ana Calderon by Graciela Limon

Mother Tongue by Demetria Martinez (Bilingual Review Press)

The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña by Dagoberto Gilb

The Ballad of Gato Guerrero by Manuel Ruiz (St. Martin’s Press)

18

La Maravilla by Alfredo Vea, Jr. (Dutton)

Dogs from Illusion by Charley Trujillo (Chusma)

1995 Under the Feet of Jesus by Helena Maria Viramontes

Only the Good Times, Juan Bruce-Novoa (Arte Publico Press)

Zia Summer by Rudolfo Anaya

Dr. Magdalena by Rosa Martha Villarreal (TQS)

Carry Me Like Water by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Harper Collines)

The Death of Friends by Michael Nava

1996 Rio Grande Falls by Rudolfo Anaya

Caballero by Jovita Gonzalez & Eve Raleigh

The Coming of the Night by John Rechy (Grove Press)

Gulf Dreams by Emma Perez (Third Woman Press)

1997 Breaking Even by Alejandro Grattan-Dominguez

A Message from the Desert by Rudolfo Anaya

The House of Forgetting by Benjamin Alire Saenz

1998 The Aztec Love God by Tony Diaz (Fiction Collective 2)

The Burning Plain by Michael Nava

Giuseppe Rocco by Ronald Ruiz (Arte Publico Press)

1999 The Day of the Moon by Graciela Limón (Arte Publico Press)

Sor Juana's Second Dream by Alicia Gaspar de Alba (University of NM Press)

The 21st Century--Millennial Vistas

The Fifth Chicano Decade 2000-2009: Post-Colonial Voices

2000 Between Dances by Erasmo Guerra (Painted Leaf Press)

Rag and Bone by Michael Nava

2001 Loving Pedro Infante by Denise Chavez (Washington Square Press)

2002 Let Their Spirits Dance by Stella Pope Duarte (Harper Collins)

2003 Drift by Manuel Luis Martinez (Picador Press)

Sofia’s Saints by Diana Lopez (Bilingual Review Press)

The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens by John Rechy (Grove Press)

The Big Bear by Ronald Ruiz (Arte Publico)

2004 Dark Eclipse: Rise of an Era by Christopher M. Salas (One Level Higher)

Playing with Boys by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez (Macmillan)

Parrot in the Oven by Victor Martinez (Harper Collins)

Beneath the Skin by John Rechy (Carroll & Graf)

2005 Our House on Hueco by Carlos Flores (Texas Tech University Press)

The Color of Law by Mark Gimenez (Anchor Books)

The Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Urrea (Little Brown/Time Warner)

Erased Faces by Graciela Limón (Arte Publico Press)

Desert Blood: The Juárez Murders by Alicia Gaspar de Alba (Arte Publico Press)

2006 In Perfect Light by Benjamin Alire Saenz (Harper Collins)

Our House on Hueco Street, Carlos Nicolas Flores (Texas Tech)

Twist of Fate by Roberto de Haro

2007 Their Dogs Came With Them by Helena Maria Viramontes (Atria Books)

Calligraphy of the Witch by Alicia Gaspar de Alba ( St. Martin's Press)

The Worm in my Tomato by Santos C. Vega (Abrazo Books)

19

2008 The Flowers by Dagoberto Gilb (Grove Press)

If I Die in Juarez by Stella Pope Duarte (University of Arizona Press)

Nymphos of Rocky Flats by Mario Acevedo (Rayo)

The River Flows North by Graciela Limón (Arte Publico Press)

Brotherhood of the Light by Ray Michael Baca, (Floricanto Press)

2009 The Flowers by Dagoberto Gilb (Grove Press)

Dead is so Last Year by Marlene Perez (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Suzanna by Irene Blea (Floricanto Press)

For Nadine’s Love: A Warrior’s Quest by Roberto de Haro (Booksurge)

Forgetting the Alamo, Or, Blood Memory, by Emma Perez (Univ of Tx Press)

The Sixth Chicano Decade 2010-2019: Still Searching for America

2010

2011 Crossing Over Water by Richard Yañez (University of Nevada)

Randy Lopez Goes Home, by Rudolfo Anaya (University of Oklahoma Press)

The Mystery of Lawlessness by Alberto Ramon (Universe Press)

This Wicked Patch of Dust by Sergio Troncoso (Camino del Sol)

Tree of Sighs by Lucrecia Guerrero (Bilingual Press)

Terror on the Border by J. Gilberto Quezada (Publish America)

The Book of Want by Daniel Olivas (University of Arizona Press)

2012 The Block Captain’s Daughter by Demetria Martinez (University of Oklahoma Press)

Ghost by R. A. Peña (Tate Publishing)

Pig Behind the Bear by Maria Nieto (Floricanto Press)

2013 The City of Palaces by Michael Nava

2014 King of the Chicanos by Manuel Ramos (Wingspress)

Copyright ©2012 by the author. All rights reserved.

Historia Chicana Mexican American Studies

University of North Texas Denton, Texas