The Hispanic Condition Ilan Stavans
Stevens-Arroyo, Anthony M
LATINO THINKERS, UP NORTH The Hispanic Condition Reflections on Culture and Identity in America Ilan Stavans HarperCollins, $25,242 pp. Anthony If. Stevens-Arroyo Ilan Stavans has given us an...
...Does the tragic Reinaldo Arenas, who professed to fornicating "with more than 5,000 men in addition to a number of women, animals and natural objects really offer "a window to an undisclosed chamber of the Latino psyche...
...Among the factual errors I found worth correcting are the following: it is sugar and tobacco, not cacao, which are the cash crops in most Caribbean economies...
...There are only thirteen in the entire book...
...The Hispanic Condition demonstrates the author's passionate identification with the Latino people even though such an identity is a conscious choice and not an imposed category...
...using obtuse academic jargon and offering statements that, when isolated, sound pompous and ridiculous...
...Stevens-Arroyo Ilan Stavans has given us an entertaining series of essays on the literary expression of Latinos in the United States, contrasting these works with similar literature from Latin America...
...Because this book is hawked on the dust jacket as a commentary on how Hispanics in the U.S...
...There is more posturing than position-taking here on mat-ters such as bilingual education, affirmative action, and sexual mores...
...He intelligently frames discussions on Mexican machismo, Puerto Rican docility, and Cuban politics so that a well-read outsider can better understand the importance of these issues in the Latino literature of culture and identity...
...But while Stavans should be criticized for his failings, he should be admired for articulating important themes of Hispanic literature...
...This book answers the question: Why would a light-skinned, Jewish, Mexico-born, Ivy-League-educated scholar be so eager to explain and defend his Hispanic identity when he could easily "pass" into mainstream society...
...Why are the critical views of religion found in homosexual artists and writers emphasized while more informed interpretations of Catholicism such as Virgilio Elizondo's books on mestizaje are not mentioned at all...
...Academic jargon is important, however, when it refers to Stavans's own production, and he forces the publisher to the extreme of ten scholarly footnotes to cite himself...
...And if so, doesn't this harsh assessment require explanation...
...Taken for what it is, rather than for what some want it to be, this book manages to be worthwhile despite the obtrusive ego of the author...
...it did not take the rise of Fidel Castro to name a rum-and-Coke, "Cuba Libre...
...But despite the talent of the author and the sincerity of his attachment to the Hispanic (or Latino) people, this book is flawed...
...really live, Stavans's more limited scope must be emphasized...
...The author has not written about the condition of the 23 million Hispanics in the U.S...
...It is not that the author overreaches his competence by attempting to explain the "condition" of all the different...
...And some of it is gold...
...English is plural, communal, collective....These tongues may fight, they might hate each other-but they must coexist...
...Does the epithet "dictator" really fit the late Cesar Chavez...
...Stavans does better than many in affording "equal time"-if not equal insight-to each of the groups...
...He finds it hard to give praise without taking it back by condescension toward someone else's achievements...
...Most distressingly, the author seems to have fallen into the jaws of snobbery, that is, he denigrates virtually everyone but himself and his professed soul mates, such as Richard Rodriguez...
...For instance, Nicolas Ka-nellos "deserves applause for helping to shape Latino literature" but the literary press he directs is characterized as "nurturing a strikingly unbalanced backlist, preferring quantity to quality, often sacrificing excellence in pursuit of fair and vocal political representation...
...but rather about how a hundred or so artists and intellectuals struggle to link themselves to ordinary Latinos...
...I believe Stavans's description of the Mexican entertainer, the late Cantinflas, to be masterful...
...Chicano historian Juan Gomez Quinones, we are told, is "dean of Chicano history" but his work is described as "an important though poorly written text, On Culture...
...Latino groups...
...Intriguing, witty, insightful, The Hispanic Condition is also biased, self-conscious, and wickedly outrageous...
...a showcase of Hispanic life as an everlasting carnival...
...A Latino surnamed "Stevens" can empathize with this struggle of a Latino named "Stavans...
...One's own family's language is private, personal, intimate...
...Can one settle the issue of bilingual education with statements like: "Bilingual education is wrong...
...the issue of a national language was raised in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (about German...
...For the reader who can put aside concern for the daily experiences of the pueblo to explore the angst of a select few Latino writers, there is much that glitters here...
...What renders The Hispanic Condition less than satisfying reading is the annoying and self-conscious effort to be cute and quotable on important and controversial issues...
...Antonio Vanegas Arroyo should not be called Antonio Arroyo (neither should Antonio Stevens-Arroyo...
...Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo is professor of Puerto Rican Studies at Brooklyn College in the City University of New York...
...Anyone writing about all Hispanics faces this hazard because one can belong biologically to only one (or two) of the groups that collectively are categorized as "Latino...
...It is clear he knows and feels the Chicano (Mexican-American) experience most deeply, deriving his understanding of Puerto Ricans and Cubans by observation...
...This is a literary analysis, not a sociological one...
Vol. 122 • September 1995 • No. 15
