Interpreting Latino/a Literature as Critical Fictions

ALAN Review, Winter 2006 by Medina, Carmen L

Multiple nationalities, gender, racial and socio economic status

One significant aspect of reading the immigrant experience and any other Latino/a literature is to understand that Latina/o is an umbrella term that encompasses people from multiple Latin American countries from Central and South America and also the Caribbean. Latinos/as emigrate from multiple countries making "border crossing" a powerful and diverse set of images in the literature. Immigration from Mexico is found in many texts including The Circuit and Esperanza Rising. Immigration from the Caribbean is found in tests such as Before We were Free a story from the Dominican Republic.

Within the diverse nationalities one also finds diverse racial and socioeconomic representations. In Before We were Free the characters living in the Dominican Republic seem to belong to a more privileged middle class where children attend American private school and the family can afford a housekeeper from Haiti. In Esperanza Rising two of the main characters, Esperanza and her mother, come from an affluent class in Mexico. The girl, Esperanza, attends private school and lives in a hacienda with her family and house keepers. In the story, Hortensia and Alfonso, two house employees immigrate with them to the United States. They are from a lower socioeconomic status and somehow guide Esperanza and her mom through their new life in the United States.

Latino/a authors explore diverse ideological constructions of gender, race and class in the literature as it relates to the previous reality before coming to the United States. Furthermore, they also explore how those constructions acquire new ideological meanings and are among the factors that situate the characters in different contexts once they arrive in the United States. Rather than a homogenous perception of Latinos as one race and one social class the reader encounters a range of representations. Reading across the literature helps one understand the complex gender, social and racial identities of Latino/a immigrants in the United States.

Critical fictions: Authors' identity embedded in the story

Using the notion of critical fictions (Mariani, 1991) allows one to see how the authors' identity and social, political and cultural locations are embedded in the stories they narrate. Those personal locations are represented in multiple forms such as genres and literary language. For example, one way in which Latino/a authors create critical fictions is by authoring texts that tell personal and community stories that represent the multiple circumstances of immigration.

In The Circuit, Jiménez narrates his personal autobiography Grafting a literary text written in an evocative language that incorporates significant Spanish words in the author's life intertwined in the narrative. The chapter titles are strong metaphors of their lives such as "to have and to hold", "moving still" and "learning the game". In addition, the powerful and realistic ending leaves the reader wondering what the future holds for this family.