The journey of Richard Rodriguez:
Stavans, Ilan
BRINGING THE PERIPHERY TO CENTER STAGE The journey of Richard Rodriguez ILAN STAVANS t is a complex fate to be an...
...Murrieta is an emblem, a of sorts who considers himself first a from the periphery of culture to center symbol of divergence, part American and gringo and then a Mexican...
...Who has it...
...This manu- of the Maya peaked there and, as Canby Having recently been to Guatemala, I had a special interest in Peter Canby's The Heart of the Sky, which describes three years of travel among Maya communities in southern Mexico and Central America...
...As a believer who regularly them...
...But this new volume lacks the coherence of the first book...
...Rodriguez's obsession is with Rodriguez is strictly personal...
...During the is offended when his writing is used for million Protestants from Mexico to Argen- next few years, disguised as an old man, the partisan endorsement of government tina), seeing in it a sign of Catholicism's an Indian, or what have you, he searched programs, and he responds accordingly...
...Is it a sum of ethnic 1947, and an editor at the Pacific News falo in the style of Hunter Thompson's groups unified by a single language and Service in San Francisco, he is part Mex- "gonzo journalism...
...Rodriguez is a brilliant actor: much like others in the book, lacks suffi- cultural allegiances...
...Thus, Latinos (spelled without the required Spanish ac- he attacked liberals for rejoicing in the in the United States, some 22 million ac- cent) published his first book, Hunger of promotion of blacks and Hispanics as "viccording to the 1990 census, encompass var- Memory: The Education of Richard tims," and for allowing their guilt to shape ious subgroups that include Cubans, Rodriguez, an explosive autobiographi- affirmative-action programs...
...Or is it a ican and all U.S...
...The an essayist, the artful playing of ideas and part with great subtlety and intelligence...
...Political analysis is nei- are succeeding in converting poor, Spanish- drunken Anglos raped his wife, tortured ther his interest nor his strength...
...Is America a com- white neighborhood in Sacramento in wrote The Autobiography of a Brown Buf pact whole, a unity...
...English, the entrance door to the peculiar defeats, and her position in the ment with My Mexican Father, melting pot, prevailed in public places...
...bilingual experience resembles that of almost completely undefined and ex- Amy Tan, Eva Hoffman, and thousands tremely controversial proper noun...
...Canby covered the entire region, and his journey brought him into contact not only with the Maya, but also with many noted scholars who have, in recent years, made major break22: 26 March 1993 Commonweal...
...He now sees California, a kind of Robin Hood who fought the ian who claims that the deformed and with a Hispanic population of over 7.5 mil- Anglo establishment out of grief and out- monstrous head he keeps hidden is that of lion (34.4 percent of the state popula- rage, giving money and happiness to the Murrieta...
...Yet he ponders bly other relatives and friends...
...their ancestors, the celebration proclaimed Vuh, a colonial era manuscript describ- There is a tendency to think the culture resistance and survival...
...was sent to Catholic school where rigid profoundly and stubbornly unique that Hunger of Memory, Riclurrd Irish nuns oversaw his assimilation...
...200 and 800...
...While Paz embarks on an archeol- schooling he received-his views of life, winner, portrayed him as a Chilean in a ogy of the Hispanic cultural idiosyncracy, death, sex, and happiness and yet, poem...
...Murrieta was an outlaw, they eventually meet a curious antiquarchildhood view...
...During the Gold Rush, Murrieta, fessors, who sometimes seemed eager to the embodiment of the centuries-old suf- from Sonora, Mexico, traveled to Calidemonize the writer...
...Born in a Acosta, a Chicano lawyer and activist, evasive and abstract...
...He unadaptability and fragile standing in for every one of his torturers and killed gets even angrier when his work is exploited modern times...
...in the Americas known to have developed 1992, when hundreds of its own writing...
...Like Hunger, Da.vs of Obligation is a collection of essays...
...reconstruct the story of the Maya society protest banners and celebrated their tra- The title, The Heart of the Sky, comes which flourished in Meso-America beditions...
...English, after all, thor of Da.vs of Obligation comes across against all stereotypes...
...He argued Mexicans, Dominicans, and Puerto Ricans cal narrative detailing his humble begin- vehemently, for example, that requiring (who are twice American): as children of nings in California, and how he was raised Spanish instruction in the classroom is with expectations that led to graduate dangerous because it creates an abyss-a ILAN STAVANS, a Mexican essayist, is the school at the University of California at sense of separateness between the student author of Imagining Columbus: The Literary Berkeley and a dissertation on John Milton and mainstream America...
...Inevitably, his contribution stands next to such a myth, Rodriguez comes to see the Shortcomings aside, Rodriguez is an ex- James Baldwin's legacy, perhaps because Rio Grande as a psychic injury dividing traordinary writer and a man of polarities- the two have so much in common: their the idiosyncrasies of Mexico and the a chameleon, a Dr...
...Amid the archaeological ruins of from "the name of the god" in the Popal tween A.D...
...published in 1950 by the Mexican essay- celibate men, but the institution of Murrieta has metamorphosized into a ist Octavio Paz...
...James Baldwin liked to quote Mexico, thoroughly traditional in their Henry James on the topic: "Amer- Books discussed Catholicism...
...historically "America" is not only a na- territories north of the Rio Grande before Hunger of Memory, comprised of five tion but also a vast continent made up of the Mayflower Pilgrims...
...Where is it...
...In California the present lives...
...His death, like a favorite target of attack for student ac- riguez talks to a number of Anglos and that of Pancho Villa, has been turned into tivists and politically connect university pro- South Americans who see Jesus Christ as legend...
...Rather he speaking believers (there are some 50 him, and hanged his brother...
...As Huerta puts it: "All of us as a sequel to Hunger, is a disappointment...
...The American authorities placed a for ideological reasons...
...tion), as a culture of comedy while Mexico personifies tragedy...
...researched at the British Museum...
...It was only after separate essays, was an engaging analysis many peoples and nations...
...civilization among Hispanics, religionare developed independently...
...a Mexican- is this nation's "unofficial" official lan- a Chicano academic and priest, Alberto American becomes a winner...
...citizen: twice American...
...From Alaska the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty signed in of the writer's journey from silence to to the Argentine pampas, from Rio de 1848, in which Generalisimo Antonio voice, from anonymity to celebrity, from Janeiro to East Los Angeles, the geogra- Lopez de Santa Anna gave away and sub- South to North...
...Such divid- stage, their strong religiosity and sense of part Mexican...
...as a child, his studies a well-known legend of a nine- Turned into detectives, the writer and son saw it as a. fiesta...
...Hyde homosexuality, their deeply felt voyage United States...
...he wonders...
...He does not throughout the years not only has he lost Murrieta's bounty-branded head-acoffer historical analysis so much as med- the strength in his faith but he foresees im- cording to rumors it was returned to the itative and speculative autobiography-a mediate crisis for the church...
...BRINGING THE PERIPHERY TO CENTER STAGE The journey of Richard Rodriguez ILAN STAVANS t is a complex fate to be an Amer- ents were first-generation immigrants from ican...
...The Latin American Novel," a misleading title, is a study about the impact and value of both Catholicism and Protestantism south of the Rio Grande and among Commonweal 26 March 1993: 21 In imaginatively exploring the life of suits are fragmentary...
...230 pp...
...But the truth is, as fering collectively endured since the ar- fornia with his brother, wife, and probaRuben Martinez and other critics have rival of the conquistadores...
...Voyage (Twayne...
...I Peter Canby few written links to the only civilization was there on October 12, HarperCollins, $25, 350 pp...
...Rod- poor and dispossessed...
...The re- tieth-century masters like Mary McCarthy...
...It to become reconciled with one another...
...He turned into a articles, he has described the book as an- powerful insights into traditional Catholic vengeful criminal, a symbol of the Chicano other Labyrinth of Solitude, the ground- symbols...
...there were Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy: Quixotic dream where total assimilation Sociologists and politicians persist in see- The Story of a Boy's Acculturation, actor is impossible, and where multiculturalism ing his ancestors as the newest wave of Anthony Quinn's The Original Sin, singer leads to disintegration...
...El BOOKS Outsider among the Maya U tatlan is a Maya archaeo- THE HEART OF THE SKY script, which may have been translated logical site located in the Travels Among the Maya from older hieroglyphic texts, is one of the Guatemalan highlands...
...immigrants, second-class citizens at the Joan Baez's Daybreak, and Jesus Colon's Baldwin's statement acquires a totally bottom of the social hierarchy...
...ing the Maya creation story...
...Adulthood, howev- teenth-century, Mexico-born bandido in Huerta follow one clue after another until er, has taught Rodriguez to reverse his Fresno County...
...His craftsmanship as without sentimentality or fear, he plays the cient historical and cultural weight...
...the world to be a sad place...
...He world yesterday and today-are all so Rirlhard Rmlrre_, Vi&irrt...
...reader finds insightful comments that ex- incidents, although in the spirit of He is the embodiment of that complex fate plain the tension between these two coun- Montaigne and John Stuart Mill, fits well shared by those born twice American: hytries described by Alan Riding as "distant the American tradition of transcendental- brids always living in the hyphen, with one neighbors," but never an overall perspec- ists like Thoreau and Emerson and twen- leg here and the other across the Rio tive that truly penetrates history...
...There are approximately 7 million Maya descendants today, speaking some thirty distinct languages and spread from the Yucatan to Guatemala, from the Chiapas highlands to Honduras...
...Rodriguez's voice is The church is our mother...
...Will multilingualismeventuallydi- Huerta, who is anxious to find it in order Unfortunately, Days of Obligation: An vide the church...
...Unfortunately, this image, ed loyalties remind me of Saul Bellow's sacredness...
...Late Victorians," the third essay, examines Rodriguez's circumspect homosexuality...
...The aubration of individuality and valor in which, Spanish...
...His the very word `America' remains a new, Rorfrigue:, Bwiiwn, S14-95, 205 pp...
...In it Rodriguez issued a vophy Christopher Columbus mistakenly sequently sold half of Mexico to the White ciferous personal attack against bilingual encountered in 1492 and Amerigo Ves- House, that many of them unexpectedly, education and minority quotas as well as pucci baptized a few years later, is also a even unwillingly, became a part of an exploring his personal Catholicism and, allinguistic and cultural multiplicity...
...Jekyll and Mr...
...The rise of multicul- and, also, as citizens of the so-called New oir...
...Should a United States by state troopers for reward Whitmanesque "song of myself," a cele- Mass in San Francisco be performed in money...
...In 1972, for example, Oscar "Zeta" "America" even more troublesome, more lectual, epitomizes their plight...
...A number of other remarkable personal turalism, which perceives the melting pot World...
...Spanish friars burned hiMaya descendants gathered for their own Nancy M. Haegel eroglyphic books when they found them, religious and political commemoration of considering them a key link in the chain Columbus's Quincentennial, an event of Indian tradition they were committed marking what many view as the beginning throughs in our understanding of pre- to break...
...In this regard, Hunger of Memone in the world seems to know exactly George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, ory was not the first U.S.-Hispanic menf what it describes...
...Unfortunately, he never to bury it with dignity as a gesture of recAiginvent with Mr Mexiccnt Father, meant gives solid answers to these questions...
...Spanish, what Rodriguez ica's history, her aspirations, her pe- in this essay calls "the private language," was used at culiar triumphs, her even more Days of Obligation: An Argu- home...
...The recurring themes-AIDS, barbarism vs...
...guage...
...the church is different citizenships and identities: Pablo alienated, anti-Romantic, often profound- our bride...
...But I find this character- Catholicism is voluptuous, feminine, sure...
...hero among Chicanos...
...though indirectly, his homosexuality...
...Catholicism," says Rodriguez, animosity against the English-speaking esbreaking study of the Hispanic psyche "may be administered by embarrassed, tablishment...
...onciliation...
...He thanks the church for the Neruda, for instance, the 1967 Nobel Prize ly sad...
...narratives by Hispanics, many seasoned as a soup of diverse and at times incom- Richard Rodriguez, arguably the most with fictional ingredients, opened up the patible backgrounds, has made the word visible and controversial Chicano intel- field...
...His fate perceived, that Rodriguez is not any sort the impact of Protestant missionaries who remains obscure...
...And before Acosta a handful of patriotic symbols...
...Before ica the nation and America the continent A decade ago, at thirty-five, Rodriguez Linda Chavez and other neoconservatives, exist in a complex symbiosis...
...He often acquires ization incomplete...
...Dressed in colorful traje (tradition- key word here, because, as Canby re- tions work painstakingly to decipher the al clothing), with young children at their peatedly shows, most of us know even less meaning of remaining hieroglyphs and to sides, people burned incense, hoisted of the modern Maya...
...The Head of Joaquin Murrieta" is the need to face our guilts and fears, if we are Rodriguez's Mexican father perceived most engaging and powerful essay...
...No of others...
...Amer- Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking reality...
...History is the scholars from these same Western traditure...
...In interviews and attends Sunday Mass, his analysis offers bounty on his head...
...His par- A true agent provocateur, Rodriguez's 20: 26 March 1993 Commonweal first book, already a minor classic, became the Chicano population in California...
...Apparently, a bunch of of right-winger...
...But the truth A Puerto Rican in New York and Other different connotation when one realizes that is that Rodriguez's ancestors were in the Sketches...
...in Mexico history continues to count...
...Now, five hundred years later, of a five-hundred-year assault on their cul- Columbian Maya history...
...Grande...
Vol. 120 • March 1993 • No. 6
