Latinx Southwest in Short Stories and Essays

elective courses
foreign languages

Course dedicated to interpretations of Latnix literature of the Southwestern United States. Students should have advanced English language skills to absorb literary works as well as critical analyses. Advances Spanish language skills are not necessary but basic Spanish may be found helpful. Students should also have at least intermediate skills in written language and should be familiar with standards of academic writing.

Blended learning
Remote learning
Self-reading

Course focusing on literature by Latinx authors of the Southwest. Studied are selected works (short stories and essays) from the last fifty years of the development of the Southwestern Latinx literature. Course incorporates both primary and secondary materials. The proposed perspective endeavors to reflect the diversity of Latinx experiences and of geographical and axiological positions of the authors.

The Latnix community is the largest minority group in the United States (approaching twenty percent of total population). Their literature as well as their larger historical presence and impact on American culture have not yet been given adequate prominence in the purview of American Studies departments. Latinx authors continue to be underrepresented in anthologies.

As not only the surveys of the 2020 presidential elections' electoral preferences illustrate, the Latinx community does not constitute a monolithic cultural or axiological block. The Southwest, Florida or New York are themselves microcosms of these differences.

To heed the call for adequate Latinx representation and nuanced critique the course proposes a study of selected English-language works by Southwestern Latinx writers of the last fifty years. We are reading America then through a set of specific lenses: mostly, but not only, Mexican-American, with a unique borderlands/Sun Belt situatedness, linguistic, historical, aesthetic, imaginary specificity.

The arguments and perspectives of these authors problematize the "American" identity and allow us to glimpse and feel the hemispheric dimensions of American geographies, histories, genealogies. In these tales multiple and multilateral (affective, mnemonic, familial, criminal, labor, diasporic, etc.) links are established between specific places in the Southwest (for example: a neighborhood, a freeway overpass, districts of Los Angeles, a car repair shop in Phoenix, a small town in South Texas, the outskirts of Tijuana, a bus stop in Mexicali, a desert) and places beyond the region (Central America, Midwest, rural Mexico, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Turkey, Moscow, Havana, and much more).

It is expected that the course's readings will provoke explorations of race, class, gender, ethnicity, complexities of acculturation, immigration, (dis)loyalty to cultural traditions. The primary goal of the course however is to focus on the artistic merit of these texts, on the quality of language and their imaginative creativity because these elements inspire the most powerful reactions in the reader.

What is the speech the writers adopt? What are their techniques, experiments in narrativity? How is the borderlands made part of the narrative process? How does Spanish and bilingualism and interlingual game playing feature in their works? What and whose stories do they choose to tell and whose subjectivities do they valuate? What is the image of their Southwestern place and how does it differ from our own imagined Southwest?

Aiming to look at texts (mostly) in their entirety, the course focuses on short stories and essays but also includes samples of memoirs and reportage.

The readings are imaginative, creatively sophisticated works. They are arranged into a set of thematic and/or geographic sections. The course’s themes correspond to what John S. Christie and Jose B. Gonzalez in "Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature" (Pearson, 2006) name the Latinx "Worlds" and include: linguistic assimilation and hybridity, Latin American past and heritage, migrant labor and working-class ethos, urban landscapes, the Mexican-American border and territorial imagination, literary experimentation, etc.

The last five decades offer some of the richest achievements in Latinx literature. Its flowering dates back to the 1960s and 1970s when the Chicano Movement or the Nuyorican scenes generated such important voices as Oscar Zeta Acosta or Miguel Pinero respectively. By the 1980s and 1990s the label of Latino and Hispanic literature came into common use. This was the Latinx "boom" - the popularity of Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Dominican American and Chicano writers – and it came on the heels of the Latin American boom of the 1970s (Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes, Mario Vargas Llosa, Julio Cortazar). Beyond a marketing label though and despite many commonalities Latinx literature retains its regional identity. The focus on the Southwestern literature offers then merely one entry into the Latinx World(s). Students learn to situate and evaluate works within the trajectory of this literature’s development.

Instructor: Dr. Grzegorz Welizarowicz

American Studies Center

University of Warsaw

e-mail: grzegorz.welizarowicz@ug.edu.pl

SYLLABUS / Summer semester 2020/2021

Latinx Southwest in Short Stories and Essays

C 0001 / elective (H), BA II & III

Friday 9:45-11:15, Room: 107

COURSE DESCRIPTION

The course focuses on short stories and, to a lesser degree, memoirs, essays, and poetry by Latinx (mostly Chicanx) writers of the Southwestern United States.

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION

Reading and writing assignments, criticism, discussions,

COURSE TEXTBOOKS:

materials available on an online drive

GRADES AND EVALUATION

At least 51% TOTAL needed to pass. FINAL GRADE calculated from:

- QUIZZES – short mixed quizzes (announced and walk-in); no make-up for missed quizzes

- WRITTEN RESPONSES – WORD LIMIT: 250 – email responses no later than 6 A.M. on the day of class to:

grzegorz.welizarowicz@ug.edu.pl; no late responses accepted

- CLASS PARTICIPATION – rewarded

- ATTENDANCE IS OBLIGATORY. ALLOWED are TWO UNEXCUSED ABSENCES. Grade reduced by half point per each additional unexcused absence. Late-comer record: three late arrivals = one unexcused absence.

- FINAL PAPER – a critical essay on an assigned topic; word limit: 1500 words. DEADLINE: week fifteen

STYLE: All submitted texts should conform to the following stylesheet: font 12 Times New Roman, double-spaced, do not justify text. Include bibliography. Submit either in a .doc, a .docx or .rtf formats. No .pdfs accepted!

COURSE OUTLINE

WEEK ONE: Feb 26, 2021 – General introduction

- Discussion:

John Christie and Jose Gonzalez “Latino Narrative”

Guillermo Gómez-Peña “Documented/Undocumented,” “The Border Is …” from Warrior for Gringostroika (37-44)

Homework: read:

Richard Rodriguez “Aria”, Gloria Anzaldúa “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” available in: Goldthwaite, Melissa A., Joseph Bizup, John Brereton, Anne Fernald, Linda Peterson. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015. 465-480.

WEEK TWO: March 05, 2021 - Essays

- Discussion:

Richard Rodriguez “Aria”, Gloria Anzaldúa “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”

Homework: read:

Ron Arias “Wetback”; Rudolfo A. Anaya “In Search of Epifano”; Daniel Chacón “The Biggest City in the World”

WEEK THREE: March 12, 2021 - Short Stories

- Discussion:

Ron Arias “Wetback”; Rudolfo A. Anaya “In Search of Epifano”; Daniel Chacón “The Biggest City in the World”

Homework: read:

Sandra Cisneros “One Holy Night”, Guy Garcia “La Promesa”

prepare for QUIZ 1: Material from weeks 01-03

WEEK FOUR: March 19, 2021 – Short Stories

QUIZ 1: Material from weeks 01-03

- Discussion:

Sandra Cisneros “One Holy Night”, Guy Garcia “La Promesa”

Homework: read and respond:

Richard Rodriguez essay “Go North, Young Man”, “The Last Discovery of America”

WRITTEN RESPONSE 1: Choose one topic: 1. On basis of the three texts by Rodriguez (course weeks one and four) describe his point of view and his voice; or 2. Describe the world you are discovering in the Latinx narratives of your choice read so far.

WEEK FIVE: March 26, 2021 – Richard Rodriguez

- Discussion:

Richard Rodriguez essay “Go North, Young Man”, “The Last Discovery of America”

Homework: read and respond:

Norma Cantú “Se me enchina el cuerpo al oir tu cuento”, Maria Helena Viramontes “Cariboo Café”,

WRITTEN RESPONSE 2: Describe the narrative strategies of Viramontes (use Jose David Salidvar’s analysis from “On the Bad Edge of la Frontera”).

WEEK SIX: April 09, 2021 - Short Stories

- Discussion:

Norma Cantú “Se me enchina el cuerpo al oir tu cuento”, Maria Helena Viramontes “Cariboo Café”,

Homework: read:

Dagoberto Gilb “Al, in Phoenix”; Alberto Rios “The Child”; Daniel Chacón “Expression of Our People”

Prepare to QUIZ 2: material from weeks 4-6

WEEK SEVEN: April 16, 2021 – working class

QUIZ 2: material from weeks 4-6

- Discussion:

Dagoberto Gilb “Al, in Phoenix”; Alberto Rios “The Child”; Daniel Chacón “Expression of Our People”

Homework: read:

José Antonio Burciaga “Pachucos and the Taxicab Brigade” and other texts in Burciaga’s Spilling the Beans

WEEK EIGHT: April 23, 2021 - essays

- Discussion:

José Antonio Burciaga “Pachucos and the Taxicab Brigade” and other texts

Homework: read and respond:

Helena Maria Viramontes “Neighbors”; Dagoberto Gilb “Love in L.A.”

WRITTEN RESPONSE 3: Describe the Los Angeles of these writers.

WEEK NINE: April 30, 2021 – Los Angeles short stories

- Discussion:

Helena Maria Viramontes “Neighbors”; Dagoberto Gilb “Love in L.A.”

Homework: read:

Stephanie Elizondo-Griest from “The Texas-Mexico Borderlands” (7-34)

WEEK TEN: May 07, 2021 - essay

- Discussion:

Stephanie Elizondo-Griest from “The Texas-Mexico Borderlands” (7-34)

Homework: read:

Ruben Martinez “Mornings in New Mexico” from Desert America (9-59)

Prepare for QUIZ 3: Material from weeks 7-10

WEEK ELEVEN: May 14, 2021 - essay

QUIZ 3: Material from weeks 7-10

- Discussion:

Ruben Martinez “Mornings in New Mexico” from Desert America (9-59)

Homework: read:

Luis Alberto Urrea “Meet the Satánicos”; Ruben Martinez “Tijuana Burning” from The Other Side

WEEK TWELVE: May 21, 2021 – Tijuana

- Discussion:

Luis Alberto Urrea “Meet the Satánicos”; Ruben Martinez “Tijuana Burning” from The Other Side

Homework: read and respond:

Mary Helen Ponce from Hoyt Street, “13011 Hoyt Street”; Ruben Martinez “Going up in L.A.” from The Other Side (106-125)

WRITTEN RESPONSE 4: Choose topic: 1. How does Ponce tell us of the life of Mexican Americans in Pacoima? 2. What do you learn about the graffiti culture in Los Angeles?

WEEK THIRTEEN: May 28, 2021 - Los Angeles memoirs

- Discussion:

Mary Helen Ponce from Hoyt Street, “13011 Hoyt Street”; Ruben Martinez “Going up in L.A.” from The Other Side

Homework: read:

Alice Bag from Violence Girl; Teresa Covarrubias/Tom DaSavia “Starry Nights in East L.A.”; and Robert Lopez “Punk-Rock Teenage Heaven” in John Doe’s Under the Big Black Sun.

Prepare for QUIZ 4: material from weeks 11-13 + readings for Week 14

WEEK FOURTEEN: June 04, 2021 – California punk memoirs

QUIZ 4: material from weeks 11-13 + readings for Week 14 - Discussion:

Alice Bag, Teresa Covarrubias/Tom DaSavia, Robert Lopez

Homework: read:

Gloria Anzaldua “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness”, Sandra Cisneros “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” Cherrie Moraga “Our Lady of the Cannery Workers”

FINAL ESSAYS DUE NEXT WEEK

WEEK FIFTEEN: June 11, 2021 –– Mestiza manifestos

FINAL ESSAYS DUE

- Discussion:

Gloria Anzaldua “La conciencia de la mestiza: Towards a New Consciousness”, Sandra Cisneros “Guadalupe the Sex Goddess,” Cherrie Moraga “Our Lady of the Cannery Workers”

Resources:

Christie, John S. and Jose B. Gonzalez. Latino Boom: An Anthology of U.S. Latino Literature. Pearson, New York,

Fetta, Stephanie. The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize: An Anthology of Prize-Winning Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Arte Publico Press, Houston TX, 2008.

Goldthwaite, Melissa A., Joseph Bizup, John Brereton, Anne Fernald, Linda Peterson. The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction. W. W. Norton & Company, 2015.

Saldivar, José David. “On the Bad Edge of la Frontera” in Decolonial Voices : Chicana and Chicano Cultural Studies in the 21st Century. Arturo J. Aldama and Naomi H. Quińonez, eds. 262-296.

Stavans, Ilan, ed. The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. Norton, Amherst, 2011.

Additional resources:

Alurista “Aztlán”

Arrellano, Gustavo. Taco USA.

Arteaga, Alfred. Chicano Poetics. Heterotexts and Hybridities. Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 1997.

Burciaga, José Antonio. Drink Cultura

Chacón, Daniel. Chicano Chicanery

Castillo, Ana. The Mixquiahuala Letters

Culture Clash Bordertown

Elizondo-Griest, Stephanie. All the Agents and Saints.

Gómez-Pena, Guillermo. Documented/Undocumented

Gonzales, Rodolfo Corky. I am Joaquin

Herrera, Juan Felipe. “Memoir: Checker-Piece”

Hinojosa, Rolando Becky and Her Friends

Martinez, Ruben The Other Side, Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West

Moraga, Cherrie. Loving in the War Years

Palacios, Monica. Latin Lezbo Comic

Paredes, Americo. With Pistol in His Hand

Ponce, Mary Helen. “Birthday”

Rechy, John. City of Night

Rodriguez , Luis J. “Sometimes You Dance with a Watermelon”

Urrea, Luis Alberto. “A Lake of Sleeping Children”, The Devil’s Highway: A True Story

Valdez, Luis. Pensamiento Serpentino

Vaquera-Vásquez, Santiago. One Day I’ll Tell You the Things I’ve Seen

Villanueva, Tino. Scene from the Movie GIANT

At the completion of the course student

KNOWLEDGE:

- knows the most important phenomena of the Latinx culture and literature

- knows an outline of the Latnix literature over the last fifty years

- knows the work of the most important Latinx writers of the Southwest

- knows the geography of the Southwest and understands its connections with Mexico

- knows and appreciates the diversity of Latinx artistic expression

SKILLS:

- can explain the different artistic expressions of Latinx writer

- can analyze Latinx literature in historical, ethical and artistic perspectives

- can appreciate the artistic merit and quality of said literature

- can understand and interpret symbolism and imagery of this literature

- can name and valuate the phenomena of Latinx culture

- can appreciate the work of both male and female Latinx authors

- can appreciate Latinx authors' relationship with the larger national and trans-national contexts

- can situate artists within the trajectory of the development of Latinx lit. over the span of the last fifty years

- can situate the artistic works within the geographical context of the Southwest and explains their relationship with Mexico

- understands the specificity of regional and local contexts,

- understands the symbolism of place (rivers, cities, deserts) in Latinx culture

ATTITUDES:

- recognizes the special place Latinx literature occupies in American culture

- expresses valuable opinions about Latinx literature

METHODS OF INSTRUCTION

Reading and writing assignments, criticism, discussions, quizzes, final paper, presentation

FINAL GRADE calculated from:

- QUIZZES – short mixed quizzes (announced and walk-in); no make-up for missed quizzes

- RESPONSES – WORD LIMIT: 250 – email responses no later than 6 A.M. on the day of class to: grzegorz.welizarowicz@ug.edu.pl; no late responses accepted

- CLASS PARTICIPATION – four pluses=half-grade up

- ATTENDANCE IS OBLIGATORY – ALLOWED are TWO UNEXCUSED ABSENCES. Grade reduced by half point per each additional unexcused absence. Late-comer record: three late arrivals = one unexcused absence.

- FINAL PROJECT – a CLASS PRESENTATION on the topic studied (max. 15 minutes) and FINAL PAPER (max. 7 pages). DEADLINE for the PRESENTATION: TBA; DEADLINE for the FINAL PAPER: week fifteen.

STYLE: All texts (RESPONSES and the FINAL PAPER) MUST CONFORM to the following stylesheet: font 12 Times New Roman, double-spaced, do not justify text. Include bibliography. Submit either in .docx or .rtf formats. No .pdfs accepted!