Redalyc.Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo: The Mexican American

Revista de Humanidades: Tecnológico de

Monterrey

ISSN: 1405-4167

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Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores

de Monterrey

México

Kabalen de Bichara, Donna Marie

Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo: The Mexican American Border Life Story as a Knowledge Source for

Understanding Local Histories and Identity

Revista de Humanidades: Tecnológico de Monterrey, núm. 31-32, 2011, pp. 31-66

Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey

Monterrey, México

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31

Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo: The Mexican American Border Life Story as a Knowledge

Source for Understanding Local Histories and Identity

Donna Marie Kabalen de Bichara

At present there is a growing consensus that today’s increasingly globalized world

requires that the traditional literary canon provide an opening to alternative literary

works that do not reflect national identities directly linked to hegemonic power

structures. When speaking of Mexican American literature we generally focus on

works that emanate from the margins and whose voices provide the reader with a rich

panorama of life experiences. The intention of the present discussion, then, is to analyze

Sandra Cisneros’ narrative, Caramelo which I suggest can be understood as a life

narrative that combines elements of autobiography, biography and fiction, as well as a

focus on ethnic identity; thus, it can be considered as an alternative hybrid literary form.

As a means of introducing the discussion of Caramelo, I first examine certain

cultural theories that deal with the global cultural process and how it is closely related to

the development of non-canonical literary forms such as Mexican American literature

that provides access to knowledge concerning the cultural identities evident in local

histories, and which in turn give voice to the subordinated cultural “other”. Finally, I

present a critical analysis of Caramelo as a narrative that brings the reader into contact

with the life stories of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Through said analysis I

propose that the autobiographical/biographical/fictional form evident in Caramelo

functions as a vehicle through which Cisneros articulates her own sense of identity, the

identity of those around her, and how this contributes to a sense of cultural definition.

Furthermore, I argue that Caramelo, as a border life narrative, is more than a record of

the “I”, it is also a record of the communal “we” and the local histories that stem from

the impact of deterritorialization.

Hoy en día encontramos un consenso amplio acerca de la noción que el mundo

globalizado requiere que el canon literario tradicional se abra a obras literarias alternas

que no reflejan identidades nacionales ligadas directamente a estructuras hegemónicas

de poder. Al hablar por ejemplo de la literatura mexicoamericana, nos enfocamos

32 Donna Marie Kabalen de Bichara

generalmente en obras que emanan desde las márgenes y cuyas voces presentan al lec-

tor una rica panorama de experiencias de vida. La intención de la presente discusión,

entonces, es el análisis de la narrativa Caramelo de Sandra Cisneros, y sugiero que se

puede entender como una narrativa de vida que combina elementos de autobiografía,

biografía y ficción, así como un enfoque sobre la identidad étnica; de esta forma, la obra

se puede considerar como una forma literaria alternativa e híbrida

Como manera de introducir una discusión de Caramelo, primero examino algunas

teorías de estudios culturales que tratan el tema del proceso global cultural y cómo está

relacionada con el desarrollo de formas literarias no canónicas como es la literatura

mexicoamericana la cual nos da entrada a conocimiento relacionado con identidades

culturales evidentes en historias locales, y que a la vez, da expresión al “otro” cultural

subordinado. Finalmente, presento un análisis crítico de Caramelo como una narrativa

que pone el lector en contacto con las historias de vida de mexicanos y mexicoameri-

canos. A través de dicho análisis propongo que la forma autobiográfica/biográfica/

ficcional evidente en Caramelo funciona como un vehículo a través del cual Cisneros

articula su propio sentido de identidad, la identidad de los que la rodean, y cómo lo

anterior contribuye al sentido de definición cultural. Además, argumento que Caramelo,

como una narrativa de vida de frontera, es más que un simple registro del “yo,” es tam-

bién un registro del “nosotros” como comunidad y las historias locales que surgen como

efecto de la desterritorialización.

iiiiarious literary theorists have traditionally argued in defense of iiiiiiiiia western canon which is one based on the celebration of aesthetics and is derived from the writing of Shakespeare. Yet there is a growing consensus that today’s increasingly globalized world requires that the traditional literary canon provide an opening to alternative subliterary works that do not reflect national identities which are directly linked to hegemonic power structures. When speaking of the Mexican American literature we most certainly focus on works that emanate from the margins. The intention of the present discussion is to analyze Sandra Cisneros’ narrative, Caramelo which I suggest can be understood as a life narrative that combines elements of autobiography, biography and fiction, as well as a focus on ethnic identity; thus, it can be considered

V

33The Mexican American Border Autobiography...

as an alternative hybrid literary form. As a means of introducing the discussion of Caramelo, I first

examine certain cultural theories that deal with the global cultural process and how it is closely related to the development of non-canonical literary forms. I then focus on a brief review of the debate concerning the “canon” as a list of books which are chosen as Great Works to be taught within today’s educational institutions versus the importance of acknowledging non-canonical literature such as Mexican American literature that provides access to knowledge concerning the cultural identities evident in local histories, and which in turn give voice to the subordinated cultural “other”. Finally, I present a critical analysis of Caramelo as a life narrative that brings the reader into contact with the life stories of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Through said analysis I propose that the autobiographical/biographical/fictional form evident in Caramelo functions as a vehicle through which Cisneros articulates her own sense of identity, the identity of those around her, especially family members, and how this contributes to a sense of cultural definition. Furthermore, I argue that Caramelo, as a border life narrative, is more than a record of the “I”, it is also a record of the communal “we” and the local histories that stem from the impact of deterritorialization.

Globalization and its Effect on Culture As we find ourselves in the second decade of the twenty-first century,

we are faced with the task of dealing with the problems and opportunities posed by globalization, specifically its effect on culture and identity. Within North America, and specifically the geographical and cultural space where we find the intersection of two semiotic spheres such as the United States and Mexico, those who travel back and forth between these areas are affected by the process of deterritorialization. That is, many immigrants from Mexico, both legal and illegal, travel as laborers into the more affluent society of the United States. According to the


Pew Hispanic Center, “[a] record 337 million Hispanics of Mexican origin resided in the United States in 2012” (5). It is precisely growing diasporas of this type that result in “shifting worlds” which have an effect on the cultural make-up of North America as well as other areas of the world (Appadurai 37-38). Of major interest for the present discussion is the examination of life experiences expressed within the literary text, particularly those portions of the narrative concerned with deterritorialization and its effect on the lives of individuals, families and communities. In the case of the Mexican American experience we are necessarily speaking of repetitive transnational movement between the cultural spheres of the United States and Mexico. This shifting from one place to another can be understood in terms of what Arjun Appadurai designates as the landscapes or “dimensions of global cultural flow”, that is, ‘mediascapes’, ‘technoscapes’, ‘financescapes’ and ‘ideoscapes’ and ‘ethnoscapes’. Mediascapes focus on “image-centered, narrative-based accounts. . . out of which scripts can be formed of imagined lives”. Technoscapes involve “global configurations . . . of technology” whereas financescapes have to do with the flow of global capital, and ideoscapes are linked to ideologies and counter-ideologies and their relation to acquiring powerholds. The concept of “ethnoscape” is of particular relevance since it refers to the flow of people from one place to another whether due to necessity or a desire to move (33-37)

In essence what results from these movements of groups of people is what Homi Bhabha refers to as “the emergence of the interstices—[where] the overlap and displacement of domains of difference—that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness, community interest, or cultural value are negotiated” (2). It is within these in-between spaces that subjects are formed, yet Bhabha questions “[h]ow. . . strategies of representation or empowerment come to be formulated. . .” (2). From his point of view “social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical


transformation” (2). Thus the ethnoscape is formed by deterritorializing flows of people which in turn results in the formation of hybrid forms of culture. These new, heterogeneous cultural forms will in turn affect the sense of identity of deterritorialized people. Cultural identity, therefore, takes shape in the borderlands, or in these so-called in-between places, where strategies for selfhood either at an individual or community level are initiated and take on what Appadurai refers to as “local color”. It is precisely the concept of “local color” as evidenced in the literary work that is of interest here.

It is interesting to note that in Modernity at Large Appadurai refers to the way in which literary studies can be seen as the means for making a connection between the word and the world. He suggests that cultural studies based on the word [which] can encompass all forms of textualized expression and world can mean. . . the organization of life-worlds” (51 – 52). These life-worlds must be examined from the perspective of the individual as well as the individual’s place in a particular ‘ethnoscape’ or community of people, especially those that have been formed by immigrants or other deterritorialized persons. Hence, literature can be seen as the word which can help us understand the world of these cultural communities which represent groups of mariginalized people.

The Canon and the Global Cultural ProcessAs we reflect upon the relationship between the word and the world,

a question must be posed concerning the role of educational institutions in a world where we can no longer ignore the many ethnoscapes that have developed as a result of changing borders and the resulting cultural flows. The traditional university curriculum tends to focus on the so-called Great Works as a means of conserving literary memory. But what is the future for ethnic writings located outside of national canons? Where and in what way can the marginal voice find a space for expression of self and collective definition?

Authors such as Harold Bloom have argued in defense of a Western canon that places the writings of Shakespeare at the center of the


literary canon. thus exalting the aesthetic power and authority of his writing. From this perspective, the canon is considered a source of knowledge, metaphorical language and wisdom, but it certainly must not be concerned with multicultural questions.

On the other hand, the words expressed by Michel Foucault in his inaugural address presented at the Collége de France in 1970 critiques societal control of discourse production. Foucault perceives Western society as having been traditionally based on procedures of exclusion and prohibition. He questions the fact that there are limits on the right to pronounce all things during whatever circumstances which would be the right only of a privileged subject. Whereas Harold Bloom, exalts the European mind in the writings of Shakespeare, Foucault accuses Europe of “opposing universal communication of knowledge and the indefinite exchange and freedom of discourses” (33

From Foucault’s point of view then, it is of extreme importance to contest cultural practices that are exclusionary. In keeping with this view Homi Bhabha suggests the following:

What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These in-between spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood – singular or communal – that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society itself. (2)

Foucault and Bhabha coincide in their criticism of historical tendencies of exclusion and the importance of moving away from narratives which initiate from the hegemonic perspective. If indeed the word is to reflect the life-world, the canon must be broadened so as to include the literary enunciation of cultural difference.

As a means of extending the discussion of the traditional literary canon versus alternative literary modes, Walter D. Mignolo focuses


on the changes that have taken place in the study of literature and the development of sub-literatures. Mignolo too is harsh when he acknowledges the need to “free literary studies from the claws of the canon and open it to the uncertainties of the corpus” (24). For him it is obvious that the testimonial narrative, subliteratures and popular culture should be taken into consideration. The canon should be at the service of cultural creativity. From his point of view the canon which was previously “conceived in terms of symbolic structures of power and hegemony” (25) is now opening up to more heterogeneous hybrid works which previously were hidden.

The work of Deleuze and Guattari and their discussion of the rhizome is of further importance as well. From their perspective: Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of significance and subjectification, central automata like organized memories. In corresponding models, an element only receives information from a higher unit, and only receives a subjective affection along preestablished paths (21).

In contrast to the “out-dated” arborescent systems, “[t]he rhizome is an acentered, nonhierarchical, nonsignifying system without a General and without an organizing memory or central automaton, defined solely by the circulation of states” (21). The rhizomatic model then is presented as a means of undermining the root-tree model, any sort of hierarchical model or system of power and domination; in essence, we are presented with a model which is seen as liberating in the sense that ‘curculation’ or new directions are possible.

Apart from rhizomatics, nomadology and nomadic thought are also emphasized by Deleuze and Guattari. The authors see history as having been written from the point of view of the “unitary state apparatus” (27). In contrast to histories that are written from a dominant point of view, the authors give examples of books by authors such as Marcel Schwob, Andrzejwski (The Doors of Paradise), and Armand Farrachi. These books are seen as being “models of nomadic and


rizomatic writing” (28). Writing of this sort represents a movement away from a form derived from the model of the State. From Deleuze and Guattari’s perspective “the anticultural book” makes active use of what has been forgotten rather than the official memory; the anticultural book emphasizes that which is perceived as underdeveloped rather than what is considered to be progress. The nomadic or territorial itineracy does not try to prioritize a particular way of being, but rather takes it meaning from its relationship to other machines which are in direct contrast to the State apparatus which attempts to homogenize flow. The marginal experience as an “other” model, is derived precisely from the “nomad”, that is, from that which is marginal and which will bring about a sense of multiplicities. Ultimately we are presented with an important alternative, one which points away from the center and points to new or “in-between” perceptive potentials which must necessarily be recognized.

What is clear from the previous discussion is that globalization is an underlying factor in the displacements and disjunction evident in our world today, and literature is the space where these “in-between” experiences are recorded. Given the present global panorama we can no longer justify limiting the literary canon to certain works. I would like to suggest here the singular importance of considering literature which grows out of the repertoire of lived experiences especially as the result of deterritorialization in the case of immigrant groups. Caramelo is a life narrative that demonstrates the relation between the word and the world of the Mexican-American experience, of people moving between two worlds, two languages, two types of cultural memory.

Caramelo as Border Life WritingThe autobiographical, biographical and fictional elements of

Caramelo present the reader with a world view that focuses on Mexican-Americans, their sense of identity and their local histories. I will begin with an overview of various theoretical perspectives regarding this


subject of autobiography and the concept of life narrative. In Paul de Man’s discussion of the rhetoric of autobiography he points out that “prosopopeia is the trope of autobiography, by which one’s name […] is made as intelligible and memorable as a face. Our topic deals with the giving and taking away of faces, with face and deface, figure, figuration and disfiguration” (926). What takes place then is the creation of a “face” as well as the act of giving a voice to those who are no longer living, thereby giving them a textual mask (919-930). Of interest in de Man’s discussion is the concept of face. That is, we know that global cultural flows are a modern-day reality, but of greater importance is the effect of transnational movements on the “face” or identity of the individual as a member of a larger community.

It is through variations in the autobiographical form that we come into contact with names and faces. Sylvia Malloy, for example, defines autobiographical writing as “the most referential of genres”; it can be seen as re-presentation, a retelling of life which is reconstructed within the narrative. Autobiography, however, “does not depend on the events, but rather the articulation of those events, stored in memory and reproduced through remembering and verbalization” (16). In her interpretation of Hispanic-American literature, Molloy has classified various autobiographical texts that represent different types of articulation: texts which refer to other texts; childhood stories and family novels; and autobiography as history. In Caramelo Cisneros’ literary expression includes several of these aspects. She has pointed out in interviews that she uses autobiographical elements regarding her childhood, biographical elements that refer to her father and other family members, as well has historical data and descriptions which focus on the situation of Mexican-American immigrants (Molino 1-4).

According to Paul John Eaken, the act of autobiography reveals the palimpsestic nature of memory where the process of revision and editing is something that occurs over a lifetime (64-67). Memories blend and, ‘self-discovery is finally inseparable from the art of self-invention’ (55).


Of particular interest here is how the art of self-invention functions regarding the memories and the faces presented by Sandra Cisneros in Caramelo. The author clearly states:

The truth, these stories are nothing but story, bits of string, odds and ends found here and there, embroidered together to make something new. I have invented what I do not know and exaggerated what I do . . . To write is to ask questions. It doesn´t matter if the answers are true or puro cuento. After all and everything only the story is remembered, and the truth fades away like the pale blue ink on a cheap embroidery pattern: Eres Mi Vida, Sueño Contigo Mi Amor, Suspiro Por Ti, Sólo Tú. (“Disclaimer, Or I don’t want her . . . )

On the basis of these introductory comments, it would seem that Cisneros is interested in using the truth of what she knows, of what she remembers as a starting point. Yet a careful examination of the work, allows the reader to discover how the writer intends to use these “bits of string, odds and ends found here and there” as a means of creating her own face in relation to others within her familial and cultural sphere. That face will, however, contain bits of fact and doses of fiction. This mix of fact and fiction is not new. Indeed, as pointed out by Laura Marcus, “as far back as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries we see evidence of complex and shifting concepts of truth, fact and fiction” (238). Marcus points to authors such as Wallace Martin who notes that “[a]lmost every factual narrative –history, biography, accounts of travels—generates an eponymous fictional counterpart” (qtd. in Marcus 238). Victor Shklovsy too has noted how the elements of a written text demonstrate a shifting between “the boundaries of factual/fictional kinds” (qtd. in Marcus 238). Thus the distinction between what is fact and fiction within life narratives is not as relevant as the importance of this literary form devoting “that serves a purpose all its own of self-discovery and reconciliation with self” (Pascal 51).

In their discussion of how to read autobiographical texts, Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson clarify the problem of fact/fiction as they make


a distinction between what they call different types of life narratives. In particular they point out that [w]hen “life” is expanded to include how one becomes who he or she is at a given moment in an ongoing process of reflection, clearly the autobiographical story requires more explaining” (1-2). The authors make a distinction between what they call life writing, life narrative, and autobiography. They prefer the more general term life writing which “takes a life as its subject” (5). This moving away from the strict notion of autobiography is due to the fact that the authors are critical of a genre has been placed at the center of a “canon of representative life narratives” which by implication determines other types of life writing as being denied their proper position as autobiographical works.

Cisneros draws on moments taken from her own life but in light of others who have been involved in her world. Indeed, the novel begins precisely with a reference to self, through the voice of Celaya and from a familial perspective: “We’re all little in the photograph above Father’s bed. We were little in Acapulco. We will always be little. For him we are just as we were then” (3). Yet as a recounting of the moment continues, the “I” speaks:

I’m not here. They’ve forgotten about me when the photographer walking along the beach proposes a portrait, un recuerdo, a remembrance literally. No one notices I’m off by myself building sand houses. They won’t realize I’m missing until the photographer delivers the portrait of Catita’s house, and I look at it for the first time and ask, -- When was this taken? Where?Then everyone realized the portrait is incomplete. It’s as if I didn’t exist. It’s as if I’m the photographer walking along the beach with the tripod camera on my shoulder asking, --¿Un recuerdo? A souvenir? A memory. (4)

What can be understood here is that Celaya remembers the fact that she is not present when the family photograph is taken during this


family trip to Acapulco. She observes her absence in the photograph. As the author begins to recount her own story, she is in effect writing about herself, but in relation to her family and a community. The text also includes references to memories “recuerdos”, photographs as well as historical moments. Indeed, as Sidonie and Watson point out:

For life narrators . . . personal memories are the primary archival source. They may have recourse to other kinds of sources—letters, journals, photographs, conversations—and to their knowledge of a historical moment. But the usefulness of such evidence for their stories lies in the ways in which they employ that evidence to support, supplement, or offer commentary on their idiosyncratic acts of remembering (6).

The concept of life narrative is important for understanding Caramelo in terms of discovering the links that exist between the process of self-figuration and a sense of cultural consciousness regarding a specific ethnic group. The narrative concerns Celaya’s observation of self; however, it is important to note that Cisneros dedicates her writing to her father. As she notes on the final page of the text, “I look into Father’s face, that face that is the same face as the Grandmother’s, the same faces as mine.” This points to the fact that she is not only observing herself but rather the self as it relates to her world. The world in this instance refers to her family, but also a larger cultural context involving a community affected by a history of displacement.

A critical analysis of Caramelo must necessarily take into consideration James Olney’s perspective regarding a processual model for memory which requires the life writer to “bring forth ever different memorial configurations and an ever newly shaped self” (Memory and Narrative, 20-21). It is precisely in the process of embroidering or reconfiguring the life experience that Cisneros uses “bits of string, odds and ends. . . to make something new”. Cisneros’ life writing involves the configuration of self, but in relation to the Mexican- American experience which becomes what Sylvia Malloy refers to as the “petite histoire” (7) with a broader purpose. Therefore, it is important to


examine Caramelo, as a sample of Chicano literature involving life writing, but also as part of the larger framework of Hispanic-American autobiographical literature, which according to Malloy “. . . is above all a public story: public in the sense that it makes public what it can and should tell, and public because, more than satisfying the need of the individual to speak about herself, it serves the general interest” (114).

Two important elements of life narratives are memory and experience. In referring to memory within a particular cultural context Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, in their reference to Susan Engel’s Context Is Everything: The Nature of Memory, point to the fact that memory is directly related to context and “memory invoked in autobiographical narrative is specific to the time of writing and the contexts of telling” (18). Smith and Watson further suggest the importance of broader cultural contexts, their relation to life narratives and how personal experience is interpreted since “[i]n autobiographical acts, narrators become readers of their experiential histories, bringing discursive schema that are culturally available to them to bear on what has happened” (27). In addition to an examination of the memory and experience evident in Caramelo, it is also important to determine how Celaya presents her own sense of identity within the narrative, particularly in terms of what she holds in common with other members of her family. As Smith and Watson point out, “[i]dentities, or subject positionings, materialize within collectivivities out of the culturally marked differences that permeate symbolic interactions within and between collectivities” (33). The individual members of these collectivities then will develop a sense of identity in terms of “the discourses that surround them [a]nd because of what Bakhtin calls ‘heteroglossia’ in the social realm, the multiplicity of languages, words and meanings that ‘mutually supplement one another, contradict one another and [are] interrelated dialogically” (Scott in Smith and Watson 34). Thus my analysis of the life narrative presented through the voice of Celaya will be undertaken in light of her dialogical relation to her family and other key members


of the Mexican-American community. I examine the articulation of memory and experience as an interpretive process which attempts to give meaning to the past as it relates to the development of identity within the social space of a specific cultural collectivity.

A Critical Examination of CarameloCaramelo is divided into three major sections and a brief final

section. Part One, “Recuerdo de Acapulco” deals with Celaya’s childhood memories and experiences that focus on the family trips from Chicago to Mexico. Part Two, “When I Was Dirt” presents the reader with the family history of Celaya’s great-grandparents, Regina and Eleuterio, her grandparents, Soledad (The Awful Grandmother) and Narciso (Little Grandfather), as well as the story of her parents, Inocencio and Zoila, met. In Part Three, “The Eagle and the Serpent or My Mother and My Father,” Celaya focuses on memories of her childhood and young adult years in Chicago and San Antonio. All three of these sections include specific historical references which provide a social and political context for memory and experience. “Fin”, the brief final section of the work, stands as a clear commentary about the imagined world of “emigrants” (435). This section also includes a short chronology of Mexican-American history from 1519 to 2002.

“Recuerdo de Acapulco” begins with a reference to “María Bonita” a song by Augustín Lara:Acuérdate de Acapulco,De aquellas noches,María bonita, María del alma;Acuérdate que en la playa,Con tus manita las estrellitasLas enjuagabas (3)

Cisneros makes a note to the reader concerning the song. This was


“a version sung by the composer while playing the piano, accompanied by a sweet, but very, very sweet violin” (3). With the words to this song in mind, we are invited to go back in time and remember what should be sweet. The narrative begins as Celaya is looking at a photograph which was taken on the beach in Acapulco during one of the summer trips taken by her family. She is pointing to those who are in the photo: her brothers Lolo, Memo, Toto, Rafa, Ito, Tikis (Lorenzo, Guillermo, Alberto, Rafael, Refugio, Gustavo), the Awful Grandmother, Mother, Father, Aunty Light-Skin and Antonieta Araceli. Celaya realizes she is missing from the photograph because she was playing in the sand at the time. Her words– “I’m not here”— show her disappointment with this incomplete “recuerdo”, one that has lost its sweetness. What stands out here is the act of remembering mentioned in the song and the photograph itself. Both the words of the song and the photograph function as metaphors for memory as a process of creating the autobiographical subject within a larger context. The act of remembering should be sweet, but in fact Celaya is startled that she does not appear in the photo. Thus Cisneros seems to suggest from the beginning of the narrative that just as this family portrait is incomplete, so too history is incomplete without mention of those who are formed within in-between spaces. This, then, is a narrative of bittersweet memories and experiences.

Of further interest here are Celaya’s comments as she observes the skin color of the people in the photograph. She remarks about her father’s face, and makes specific reference to her Father’s skin which is “pulpy and soft, pale as the belly side of a shark”. Her grandmother is observed as well and she “has the same light skin as Father” (3).

Thus, this first section is striking because this particular family photograph awakens a memory and refers to skin color as the reader begins a process of being transported into the experience, the world of a family traveling back and forth from Chicago to Mexico, to Chicago, to San Antonio, and elsewhere. Early on we are introduced to the Reyes brothers-- “Uncle Fat-face’s brand-new used white Cadillac,


Uncle Baby’s green Impala, Father’s red Chevrolet station wagon” (5)-- as they make their yearly trip to Mexico City. The Reyes brothers work as upholsterers at the L. L. Fish Furniture Company. These are manual laborers who “. . . are craftsmen. They don’t use a staple gun and cardboard like the upholsterers in the U.S. They make sofas and chairs by hand. Quality work” (8). Here the author is clearly referring to the daily work experience of these brothers who live and work in Chicago as do so many Chicano laborers. They are proud of their work and obviously their economic situation in the United States allows them to buy the used Cadillac, the green Impala and the red Chevrolet station wagon, yet they are rooted in their home in “Mexico City! La capital. El. D.F. La capirucha. The center of the universe!” (25). Cisneros confronts us with this repetitive tradition regarding the return home. The brothers work at the furniture company, but they often arrive late to work which is not in keeping with the rules of the job in their “home” in Chicago. They are fired, but it doesn’t matter because this will allow them to spend three months at “home” in Mexico. At this point in the narrative we are introduced to a diasporic consciousness concerning what Anindyo Roy refers to as the “highly ramified nature of home” (104). The Chicago home is where the brothers work, but Mexico is the home related to nostalgic memories.

As the reader continues observing this Mexican-American world, Cisneros continues to focus on the notion of color. Once the family crosses the border from the United States into Mexico the narrative makes numerous references to color as well as flavors:

Churches the color of flan. Vendors selling slices of jícama with chile, lime juice, and salt. Balloon vendors. The vendor of flags. The corn-on the-cob vendor. The pork rind vendor. The fried-banana vendor . . . The vendor of rainbow pirulís, of apple bars, of tejocotes bathed in caramel. (17)


Here we can see the colors and almost taste the flavors of Mexico. Flan, pirulís and caramel. Flan is creamy colored and usually topped with a caramel. This caramel topping is made from sugar that has been browned, changed from its original white color to light brown. Pirulís are candies which have winding stripes of color. Jícama is white and usually served with lime juice, salt and chíle. These references serve as a reminder that the people of this family history are people of color, although some are lighter than others. Celaya tells us that “[e]very year I cross the border, it’s the same—my mind forgets. But my body always remembers” (18). Celaya remembers the good smells, but also “[the] smells of diesel exhaust” (18). With all these references to color, especially caramel, it would seem that the reader too is asked to remember that Mexico is a land of people of color who were conquered by Europeans.

In this initial section of the narrative, as various family members are introduced, what can be noticed is a continual reference to color and status. Aunty Light-Skin’s real name is Norma, but as Celaya tells us “who would think to call her that? She’s always been known as la Güera even when she was a teeny tiny baby because, --Well, just look at her” (29). Aunty Light-Skin’s daughter, Antonieta Araceli has been named after a Cuban dancer, María Antonieta Pons, who was “Blond-blond-blond and white-white-white. Very pretty, not like you” (29). Here it becomes clear that those who with light skin are considered attractive and acceptable, whereas those who are not blond or white are designated as being of lower status.

Textual references to color continue and it is through the child-like eyes of Celaya that we are first introduced to Candelaria:

The girl Candelaria has skin bright as a copper veinte centavos coin after you’ve sucked it. Not transparent as an ear like Aunty Light-Skin’s. Not shark-belly pale like Father and the Grandmother. Not the red river-clay color of Mother and her family. Not the coffee-


with-too-much-milk color like me, nor the fried-tortilla color of the washerwoman Amparo, her mother. Not like anybody. Smooth as peanut butter, deep as burnt-milk candy. (34)

Because she is so taken with this child of caramel color, Celaya wants to hold hands and play with Candelaria; but Antonieta Araceli cannot understand how Celaya can play with someone who is dirty and doesn’t wear underwear. So as to find out whether or not Antonieta Araceli’s perception is true, the children begin playing a game of tag and Candelaria is designated to be “It”. As she squats down so as not to be tagged, the children see beneath her and find that she is not wearing underpants: “Not exactly, not underpants. Not little flowers and elastic, not lace, and smooth cotton, but a coarse pleat of cloth between her legs, homemade shorts wrinkled and dim as dish towels” (36). At this precise moment the children decide they no longer want to play, and as Canelaria comes toward her, Celaya runs away. Immediately following this moment in the novel, the author presents us with a scene in which Zoila, Celaya’s mother, discovers that her child has head lice. It is at this point that Celaya is forbidden to play with or to even talk to Candelaria. Thus, it is early on in the novel that we are presented with the distinctive feature of dark skin color and its connection with dirt and poverty that ultimately results in alienation. What is evident in this remembered experience is that there are specific characteristics such as color and economic levels that determine who is an insider and who is an outsider in terms of status. Thus the incident is not a simple childhood memory, but a strong political statement with regard to the historical subaltern position of Mexican-Americans as people of color of a lower socio-economic status and therefore considered as outsiders within the United States.

The second section of this life narrative, When I Was Dirt, takes us back in time. Celaya tells us this is where her history begins:


Once in the land of los nopales, before all the dogs were named after Woodrow Wilson, during that epoch when people still danced el chotís, el cancán, and el vals to a violín , violon-celo, and salterio, at the nose of a hill where a goddess appeared to an Indian, in that city founded when a serpent-devouring eagle perched on a cactus, beyond the twin volcanoes that were once prince and princess, under the sky and on the earth lived the woman Soledad and the man Narciso. (91)

This introduction is meant to introduce the reader into a hybrid world of Mexico’s history, a history informed by references to the semiotic spaces of the United States and Europe, devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe, Aztec history and romantic myths. These historical references serve as a background to the story of Celaya’s grandparents, Soledad and Narciso. This will be a family history which involves Spanish origins, Mexican idiosyncracies, and a journey to the United States and back. However, as the reader discovers, the relation between Soledad and Narciso will not be a romantic one, but rather a relationship based on necessity where each settles for the other. These are people from the land of los nopales, a land which involves a history of conquest and dominance.

Celaya introduces this part of the family history as taking place “before our time. Before we were born. . . . I remember a house. I remember sunlight through a window. . .” (89). Celaya tells us that Soledad is her Awful Grandmother, but her intention is to tell us a story “. . . from the time of before. Before my Awful Grandmother became awful, before she became my father’s mother” (91). We are told that Soledad Reyes comes from a family of reboceros from Santa María del Río in San Luis Potosí. Celaya points out that her great-grandfather, Ambrosio Reyes, “was a man who stank like a shipyard and whose fingernails were permanently stained blue . . . due to his experience as a maker of black shawls” (93). It is within this atmosphere of a laboring artisan that Soledad grows up. However, when Soledad’s mother,


Guillermina dies, Ambrosio remarries whereafter he “lost interest in his daughter the way one sometimes remembers the taste of sweet but no longer longs for it. The memory was enough to satisfy him. He forgot that he had once loved his Soledad” (95). Soledad, whose name means ‘loneliness’, is sent to live with her father’s cousin Fina in Mexico City, and all she leaves home with is an “unfinished caramelo rebozo, two dresses, and a pair of crooked shoes” (95). Soledad can be found with this unfinished rebozo “plaiting, unplaiting, plaiting, over and over” (95). Within the narrative the figure of the rebozo clearly functions as a linguistic marker regarding a feminine object, one that is used to carry a child, to cover the head, for twisting and braiding into the hair, and it was often used as a burial shroud. Cisneros inserts a cultural footnote here to remind the reader that:

The rebozo was born in Mexico, but like all mestizos, it came from everywhere. It evolved from the cloths Indian women used to carry their babies, borrowed its knotted fringe from Spanish shawls, and was influenced by the silk embroideries from the imperial court of China exported to Manila, then Acapulco, via the Spanish galleons. During the colonial period, mestizo women were prohibited by statutes dictated by the Spanish Crown to dress like Indians, and since they had no means to buy clothing like the Spaniards’ they began to weave cloth on the indigenous looms creating a long and narrow shawl that slowly was shaped by foreign influences. The quintessential Mexican rebozo is the rebozo de bolita, whose spotted design imitates a snakeskin, an animal venerated by the Indians in pre-Columbian times. (96)

Thus Soledad’s unfinished rebozo functions as a metaphor of how the

lives of her grandparents are woven together, like pieces of unfinished tapestry, with pieces of thread, just like the rebozo itself. The rebozo has taken shape through a multitude of influences just as Celaya’s life is influenced by the numerous life stories of family members.


The feminine rebozo then serves as the starting point of the family history of the Reyes women. Within the narrative we are introduced to the Awful Grandmother who in the first part of the novel, when the family visits her in Mexico City, acts condescendingly to everyone except her first son, Inocencio. But in the second section when we meet her as the young Soledad, we find a girl who is exploited by Aunty Fina who has twelve children. Soledad is surrounded by smells of “the stinging cloud of laundry boiling in tubs of lye, the scorched-potato-skin scent of starched cloth . . . the foggy seaside tang of urine, the bile of chamber pots” (101). These smells are in clear contrast with the memory of delightful smells that Celaya encountered as she arrives at the plaza in Mexico in the first section of the narrative. The harsh smells experienced by Soledad serve to make her want to return to “that other home, that root, that being whom she could not help but think of whenever her body tugged her for attention” (101). It is the yearning for home that catches the reader’s attention here. Soledad is torn away from home and it is precisely this reference to uprootedness that runs throughout the narrative and which points to the diasporic experience of Mexicans as well as Mexican-Americans. The history of this family has its beginnings in a situation where a person is uprooted and separated from a real home, and it is this experience that is used as a means of reminding the reader about the history of a people historically torn between two ‘homes’.

Soledad’s journey away from home takes her to an encounter with Narciso Reyes when he goes to pay Fina who happens to be his mother’s washerwoman. This is a man described as “fastidious, demanding, impatient, impertinent, impulsive . . . but never sensitive and seldom tender” (103). He meets Soledad and after some time she tells him her sorrowful story. He listens and then for some reason “felt somehow obligated to save her” (109). Interestingly, his way of saving her is to take her to his home so she can work there as a domestic servant. Soledad’s position as a housekeeper in the Reyes’ household


becomes a symbol of the experience of the impoverished person being “saved” by being offered work involving menial tasks. Narciso lived with his family in seeming opulence. Here we are again confronted with the problem of social status and difference. Narciso’s family was considered to be of “las familias buenas whose coat of arms had once adorned the doors of these colonial buildings. After all, Señor Eleuterio was from Seville, as the family liked to remind everyone” (114). Yet in an historical footnote, Cisneros explains how Narciso’s mother, Regina, came to marry Eleuterio Reyes whom she admittedly did not love: “Regina liked to think that by marrying Eleuterio Reyes she had purified her family blood, become Spanish, so to speak. In all honesty, her family was as dark as cajeta and as humble as a tortilla of nixtamal. Her father made his living as a mecapalero, a man whose job it is to be a beast of burden, an ambulatory porter. . .” (116). In this fragment we discover that Regina marries Eleuterio because he was “so pale and hazel-eyed, Mexicans considered him handsome because of his Spanish blood. She, on the other hand, thought herself homely because of her Indian features. . .” (117).

Once again we are confronted with the non-fictional political commentary that forms part of this life narrative. This is not simply a family history based on memories, it is also an examination of the Mexican experience--a history of experiences where the Mexican identity is deemed inferior because of its Indian features and dark color, whereas the pale, light-eyed Spaniard is considered superior. The only way to purify Mexican family blood is to introduce the pure blood of the European.

Here it is interesting to note that Soledad’s memory takes her back to a special moment:

And I remember a very odd memory that has no home and nook in which to shelf it. I was very young and sitting on someone’s lap, and someone was putting my shoe on my foot and buttoning it, because you


had to have a hook in those days to put on a shoe, and this someone, buttoning me, babying me, looking after me . . . I think this someone was my mother (119).

Soledad’s memory takes her back to a moment of what she calls “absolute safety, absolute happiness” (119). This recollection can also be related to the Mexican experience prior to the arrival of the Spaniards and the Conquest. Just as Soledad recalls a moment of innocence, a moment of happiness, so too the period before the historical intrusion of the Spanish conquerers was a period when a clear sense of indigenous identity existed. Through these memories we are reminded that the threads of history have resulted in a Mexican sense of identity that sees itself as impure and in need of purification by European blood when in fact the Indian is beautiful: “la India bonita . . . whose beauty brought Maximilian to his knees as if he was a gardener and not the emperor of Mexico. . . (117).

Domination of the cultural “other” is represented in the reference to the Conquest is also played out in the relation between Soledad and Narciso. Soledad believes in the fairy-tale notions of somehow being rescued by love. She actually believes that Narciso is taken by her when in fact he was “simply enjoying her as his birthright. Was she not ‘la muchacha,’ after all, and was it not part of her job to serve the young man of the house?” (156). Ultimately Soledad will become pregnant and Narciso will be forced to marry her. Narciso then uses Soledad in the same manner that the Spaniards used the Indian woman. Mestizaje would seem to be a romantically informed notion, yet the Indian woman was simply there to serve the Spanish male conqueror.

As part of this petit histoire which informs us of continuous cultural flows, Narciso will be sent to Chicago to wait out the Mexican revolution. While there he will live with his Uncle Old and his sons, Chubby, Curly, and Snake who worked as upholsterers. He then falls in love with a woman whom he describes to his father in a letter:


“[S]he is Spanish like you. Well, Spanish on her father´s side. Her mother is half Cherokee and half Negro. But all together she is a real American and wonderful, and when you meet her. . .” (141). Eleuterio of course is enraged with the possibility suggested by his son: “¡Qué! What! Una negra to be his daughter-in-law! Una negra to become a Reyes!” (141). Again we see the hybrid identity of the woman that Narciso falls in love with, but the strong objection on Eleuterio’s part because of the fact that the woman is “half Negro”. Narciso, however, is jilted by his Tompita and he finally journeys back to his homeland where Soledad becomes pregnant with his child. Narciso, oblivious to Soledad’s condition, decides to take a job as a bookkeeper in Oaxaca at a time “when Mexico was trying to build itself into a modern nation” (164). During the farewell party for his son however, Eleuterio shouts out loud—“We are not dogs” (167). He explains to his son that Narciso had been conceived out of wedlock, and Eleuterio clearly repeats what his own father had told him, “We are not dogs” Thus, Narciso does not marry a woman who is “half Negro”, instead he “fulfilled his obligation as a gentleman” and marries (167); but as is pointed out later in the text “Narciso Reyes, this man who never left his home without a hat, a clean handkerchief, and a sharp crease in his trousers, took for his wife his cousin Soledad Reyes, she of the kingdom of the kitchen” (167).

The story of Regina and Eleuterio, Narciso and Soledad demonstrates that history does involve experiences that are continuously repeated. Regina in an attempt to purify her own blood marries Eleuterio, not out of love, but because he has white skin and is from Spain. Narciso “[d]elighted his mama [because] he was born lighter than herself” (157), yet he was attracted to a woman who was “half Negro”, although admittedly she had some Spanish blood on her father’s side of the family. Narciso finally ends up marrying someone he considers beneath himself. Indeed, these repetitive experiences involving improving bloodline, color and social status seem to stem from a sense of identity gone awry, a sense of identity damaged when “the land of los nopales” is conquered by


the European. It is precisely this type of reference in life writing which points to the effects of an antagonistic relationship that exists between a culture that maintains memories of the experience of domination and intervention. The family histories portrayed in this section then are symbols of damaged identities constantly in search of a perfected self. However, it is Celaya’s comment as family historian that introduces a conciliatory tone:

We are but an extension of our ancestors, our several fathers and many mothers, so that if one thinks about it seriously and calculates, at one time hundreds of years ago, thousands of people were relatives-to-be walking across villages . . . without knowing that in years to come their own lives and those of contemporary strangers would merge several generations later to produce a single descendant and twine them all as family. Thus, in the works of old, we are all brothers. Indeed this “single descendant” that weaves everyone into a family, is a member of the Reyes family, a family of kings. (157)

The third section of Caramelo, entitled The Eagle and the Serpent or my Mother and My Father, focuses on Celaya’s memories and experiences regarding her parents and how this affects her own journey towards selfhood. Celaya remarks that “[f]or a long time I thought the eagle and the serpent on the Mexican flag were the United States and Mexico fighting. And then, for an even longer time afterward, I thought of the eagle and the serpent as the story of mother and father” (235). Celaya’s memories involve fights she witnesses between her parents, and fights she eventually has with her parents. But most importantly she refers to fights that have to do with “the Mexicans from this side compared to the Mexicans from that side. . . “ (235). Thus the examination of Celaya’s development of her own sense of identity will be undertaken in terms of how it is supplemented by a multiplicity of social interactions.


This section also emphasizes the continued shifting from one place to another in an attempt to settle into a new home. As a means of understanding Celaya’s conflict in terms of her hybrid cultural experience and identity, it is important to understand the family experience regarding the Awful Grandmother’s move to Chicago after her husband’s death and the family’s subsequent move to San Antonio and how this affects Celaya.

Because of the Little Grandfather’s death, Celaya’s father, Inocencio, takes his family back to Mexico City for the funeral. As Celaya comments “That’s how it is we lose another summer vacation and head one last time to the house on Destiny Street” (251). Celaya arrives with her family and is told to go and help her grandmother with the packing. She stops by the armoire in her grandparents’ room and goes over to touch it. “The open doors let out the same smell I remember from when I was little. . .” (253). At this precise moment, however, Grandmother shoos her granddaughter away and closes the door. In one of the drawers of the armoire Grandmother finds the caramelo rebozo. As she unfolds it she ponders memories about the past:

When the Grandmother had slept in the pantry of Regina Reyes’ kitchen, she’d tied her wages in a knot in one end of this rebozo. With it she had blown her nose, wiped the sleep from her face, muffled her sobs, and hiccupped hot, syrupy tears. And once with a certain shameless pharmacist named Jesús, she had even used it as a weapon. All this she remembers, and the cloth remembers well. (254)

She takes time as well to place it on her shoulders “[w]here the body remembers the silky weight” (254). She contemplates the fabric of the “caramelo rebozo [that] was dyed in candy stripes, all this she considers before rolling up the shawl again. . .” (254). Here the memories triggered by touching the rebozo are memories from the past. Memories of working as a domestic servant, memories of being


abused. But she puts these memories away together with the rebozo as she readies herself for the move to her son’s home in Chicago.

During the journey back home to Chicago the family is “riding in the metallic-blue shop van with the windows rolled down because of the heat. TAPICERÍA TRES REYES—THREE KINGS UPHOLSTERY—the doors read. FURNITURE FIT FOR A KING” (238). Celaya remembers that the Awful Grandmother is with them and the boys, Memo and Lolo, ask their father about his war experiences during World War II. Grandmother remarks that she knows something about war, referring to the Mexican Revolution: “I could tell you something about what I saw” (244). The boys, however, are more curious about Father’s memories of the war and how women were abused by “the barbarians . . . Los norteamericanos” (245). When the boys ask their father why he didn’t do anything to stop them he responds that “that’s how it is in war. The winners do what they like” (244). He then goes on to tell them he could do nothing because he “was just a chamaco then” (244). It is at this moment that Father recounts his own history of being stopped by the police as an illegal alien when he was on his way to Chicago long ago. He tells about his experience of being taken to the enlistment center. He then recounts: “When I got to my destino, to Chicago, a letter was waiting for me from the government. Report here and here and here. So you see, I was obligated to serve as was my duty as a gentleman. After all, this great country has given me so much” (245). It is through Father’s story that further political commentary is evident in the text. Father’s destino can be read in two ways—as arriving to his destination in Chicago or as meeting his destiny. This recollection stands as a commentary on how the dominant culture took advantage of an illegal alien journeying to Chicago to find work. That is, he is intercepted and forced to serve in the war of a country where he is not a citizen and this is his destiny. Inocencio ultimately turns this moment in his life story into one in which he acts as a gentleman and fulfills


his duty to a country that “has given me so much”. What is evident here is how the subaltern alters his or her memory and appropriates the discourse of the dominant culture as a means of survival, even when that discourse is contrary to the reality of experience. Hence, it is through memories, those of Inocencio and those of his mother, the now Awful Grandmother, that we come into contact with the experiences of those who have suffered the consequences of domination. These memories are more than personal; taken together they become collective in nature as they speak of a larger cultural history. Both mother and son represent cultural identities carved out of histories of abuse and oppression within the semiotic spheres of Mexico and the United States.

A sense of shifting from one place to another continues within the narrative. After living for a number of years in Chicago the family, at Grandmother’s urging, moves to San Antonio. It is in San Antonio that Grandmother uses the money she earned from the sale of her home in Mexico as a down payment on a house, and Father finds a nearby shop to open his own business. Father tells his wife Zoila “my mother gave us the money for the down payment of our house. Gave it to us. A gift, not a loan, Zoila. Just think, when she moves out, you’ll be a landlady. A landlady, Zoila! Isn´t that what you always wanted ?”(303). Zoila’s response is to be expected—“Well . . .She´s not staying forever, right?” (303). Inocencio replies that things must go “Poco a poco, not all at once. She needs to look for a house, and I’ll need to borrow some money from her to put into the new shop . . . ( 303). Inocencio had also promised Celaya a room of her own. But because this living situation reflects an economic situation based on the need for collective cooperation as a means of survival, the Grandmother will stay with them until her death, and Zoila will care for her. Celaya will not get her own room, rather she will have to sleep in the living room.

From the beginning Celaya is disappointed with her new home which she describes as “[w]ashed-up, rotten, rusted, falling apart. Shipwrecked. That’s what we are. A huge galleon made up of this and


that stranded on land” (306). The house for Celaya comes to represent the way in which she sees herself and her family. It is at this point that Celaya’s voice regarding her own development becomes evident: “To tell the truth, nobody knows what I want, and I hardly know myself. A bathroom where I can soak in the tub and not have to come out when somebody’s banging on the door. A lock on my door. A door. A room. A bed” (315).

In addition to her disappointment with the house in San Antonio her father will see to it that she attends high school at a Catholic School, Immaculate Conception. Here she comes into contact with Viva. When she and Viva talk about Mexico, Celaya is surprised that Viva has never been any further than Nuevo Laredo because as Viva explains “My family’s from here. Since before. --Since before what? –Since before this was Texas. We’ve been here for seven generations” (328). Celaya is amazed that Viva’s family has remained in the same place for so long since she “can’t even imagine staying in one place for seven years” (328). It is through these two young women, and their conversation about home, that the reader is asked to remember the history of more than 80,000 Mexican citizens who, prior to 1848, inhabited the Northern territories of Mexico. After the War of North American Intervention and the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which resulted in the cession of these northern territories, the borders of the United States were extended, and the inhabitants of these territories became foreigners in a land that was once theirs. Viva is a descendent of those Mexican citizens. Celaya, on the other hand, is a descendent of someone born in Mexico. Many of those born in Mexico form part of the group of immigrants who initially moved to the states of California, Texas, New Mexico and beyond due to political strife in Mexico. And many of these people, like Celaya’s father, entered the U.S. as an illegal laborer.

Viva is a free spirit and very much in charge of herself. Celaya and Viva dream of moving to California and becoming songwriters together, but one day Viva surprises Celaya with the news that she is engaged.


Celaya is shocked and disappointed and wonders what will become of their dream. Viva’s answer is simple: “You’re the author of the telenovela of your life. You want a comedy or a tragedy? . . .Choose. I believe in destiny as much as you do, but sometimes you´ve gotta help you destiny along” (345). The concept of destiny is an important aspect to consider here and it is not the first time the word occurs within the narrative. Grandmother lived on Destiny street in Mexico City and Inocencio has spoken about his life in the United States as part of his destination and destiny. Viva is responsible for forcing Celaya to consider the possibilities that are part of life, especially the possibility of choice.

The Awful Grandmother finally dies and Celaya’s response is one devoid of feeling. She says that she “can’t think of anything to say for my grandmother who is simply my father’s mother and nothing to me” (351). What does have an impact on her is the economic setback suffered by the family after the Grandmother’s death. Mother tells her children they’ll have to tighten their belt until better times come along. Celaya sees life as going from bad to worse. She comments that: “All our money went getting us to Texas, buying the house on El Dorado Street, starting the shop on Nogalitos Street. And then the Grandmother dying, and her hospital bills that swallowed up all her money, and the funeral and burial in Mexico City, well, it’s a hard spell, that’s all” (351).

As a result of this economic set-back Celaya is forced to leave Immaculate Conception and is enrolled in Davy Crocket, a public vocational school. She feels let down because there is nothing at the school that interests her. She says she’s not interested in becoming a farmer or a beautician, “I want to take classes like anthropology and drama. I want to travel someday. Be in a movie, or even better, make a movie. I want to do something interesting” (352). What is most difficult here is her conflict in terms of identity. She is asked by some boys if she is Mexican on both sides of the family. She responds that she is, “front and back” (352). The boys respond that she doesn’t look


Mexican which infuriates her: A part of me feels sorry for their stupid ignorant selves. But if you’ve never been farther south than Nuevo Laredo, how the hell would you know what Mexicans are supposed to look like, right? (353)”. She then continues her own mental argument regarding what Mexicans are like:

There are the green-eyed Mexicans. The rich blond Mexicans. The Mexicans with the faces of Arab sheiks. The Jewish Mexicans. The big-footed-as-a-German Mexicans. The leftover-French Mexicans. The chaparrito compact Mexicans. The Tarahumara tall-as-desert-saguaro Mexicans . . . The negrito Mexicans of the double coasts. The Chinese Mexicans . . . Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about when you say I don’t look Mexicane. I am Mexican. Even though I was born on the U.S. side of the border (353).

Once again the reader is confronted with a message that is not only Celaya answering what she considers to be a stupid question, but the author once again seems to be making a clear statement intended to educate those outside of the Mexican-American community.

Celaya’s response to these questions is to invent a story about the Reyes family being descendents of royalty, with “blue blood going back to Nefertiti, the Andalusian gypsies, the dancing-for-their-dowry tribes in the deserts of North Africa” (353). She also tells them that her great-grandfather Eleuterio Reyes was from Seville. Her response immediately gets her into trouble with Chicana female classmates like Cookie Cantú who are constantly talking about “Brown power! Making fists and chanting, – Viva la raza. Or, –I’m Chicana and proud. . .” (354). The Chicanas are furious and scream: “Pretending like you’re Spanish and shit.” They call her “bolilla” and “gabacha” (354). They continue ranting: “Think you´re so smart because you talk like a white girl. . . . You thing you’re better than us, right?” (356). The shouting match results in the Chicanas hitting Celaya who runs off thinking she


never really belonged here – “I don’t know where I belong anymore” (356). She runs home to examine herself for bruises and we hear her voice: “Celaya. I’m still myself. Still Celaya. Still alive. Sentenced to my life for however long God feels like laughing” (357).

Celaya is not the only one in the family who has a difficult time in San Antonio. Her father, Inocencio, is questioned by the INS and is forced to prove he is residing in the country legally. He shows them the papers which prove he was honorably discharged from the Army as well as a letter signed by Harry Truman: “ To you who answered the call of your country and served in its Armed Forces to bring about the total defeat of the enemy, I extend the heartfelt thanks of a grateful Nation” (377). This scene is a firm critique of a country which accepts immigrant men into the armed services, yet rejects the immigrant who speaks with an accent as is the case with Inocencio. Ultimately Father decides he is tired of life in San Antonio and he wants to go home—“Home, I want to go home already” (380). And we hear Celaya’s question—“Home? Where’s that? North? South? Mexico? San Antonio? Chicago? Where, Father?” (380).

In the midst of these incidents, Celaya’s search for a sense of identity and a sense of belonging will also include meeting Ernesto whom she thinks might be her destino. She immediately thinks they will marry each other. Celaya packs her Grandmother’s caramelo rebozo and finally runs away to Mexico with Ernesto. Her intention is to get pregnant so both families will have to give their blessing. Ernesto, however, ultimately rejects the possibility of marrying Celaya and it will be her Father who comes to get her and take her home, this time back to Chicago where Inocencio is asked to go back into business with his brothers, Uncle Baby and Uncle Fat-Face. Thus the novel comes full turn as the family moves back to Chicago where Inocencio becomes seriously ill. It is at this point that Zoila tells her daughter that her father had a child out of wedlock, and that child, Candelaria “with the dark andalusian eyebrows of our sevillano grandfather, the


skin darker and sweeter than anyone’s (427-328)” is Celaya’s sister. After the shock of learning about her father’s experience, she chews on the caramelo rebozo which makes her recall that she is “connected to so many people, so many” (428).

Although this section of the narrative is quite long, it brings a number of elements together. Celaya’s “I” becomes evident as she searches for her place somewhere in-between the realm of Mexican and Chicana identity. She is from a family with roots in Mexico, yet she was born “on the U.S. side of the border” (353). She tells the reader, “I look into Father’s face, that face that is the same face as the Grandmother’s, the same face as mine” (427). Celaya is the embodiment of identities that take shape in the borderlands. Yet it is not only Celaya’s face that is presented in this autobiographical/biographical/fictional narrative, her face also represents that of a specific ethnic group. Thus, it is through this narrative that the reader becomes a witness to the history of the cultural flows of individuals who come from Spain, Mexico and the United States.

As a means of finally understanding the focus of this narrative it is important to take into consideration the very last section entitled Fin. A voice tells us:

And I remember . . . so many things, so many, all at once, each distinct and separate, and all running together. The taste of a caramelo called Glorias on my tongue. At la Caleta beach, a girl with skin like cajeta. . . [t]he caramelo color of your skin after rising out of the Acapulco foam . . . My mother watering her dahlias with a hose and running a stream of water over her feet as well, Indian feet, thick and square, como de barro, like the red clay of Mexican pottery. (435)

She comments about feeling “bound together in a country I am homesick for, that doesn´t exist anymore. That never existed. A country I invented. Like all emigrants caught between here and there” (434).


This narrative clearly demonstrates that ethnoscapes are formed as the result of cultural flows; and this particular ethnoscape involves the history of three generations of a family. Yet this petit histoire articulates only part of a much larger history. As pointed out in the final chronology presented by the writer, this is a chronology that begins in 1519 when Cortés and Monteczuma meet in Mexico City. It includes the signing of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the 1942 bracero program as well as many other key historical moments. The chronology ends with a mention of the canonization of Juan Diego in 2002. Cisneros states that “Juan Diego [is] a saint despite controversy over whether Juan Diego ever existed. Some state that he was simply a story told to the Indians in order to convert them from their devotion to Tarantzin, the Aztec fertility goddess” (439). Again, this is not a simple commentary on the sainthood of Juan Diego. Rather Cisneros confronts the reader with the question of Juan Diego’s existence. Did he exist, or is this a myth or a story? How much of what we have just read is truth, and how much is fiction? And what should be our attitude toward the story and the history contained herein? The answer is somehow tied to the author’s final comments: “All over the world, millions leave their homes and cross borders illegally” (439). Thus, this life narrative involves the memories and experiences of real people, specifically those of Celaya, Father and the Awful Grandmother; but this story, this history involves a personal past closely tied to a collective one of “emigrants caught between here and there” (434).

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Pascal, Roy. Design and Truth in Autobiography. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960. Print.

Roy, Anindyo. “Postcoloniality and the Politics of Identity in the Diaspora: Figuring “Home” in Locating Histories in Postcolonial Discourse and Changing Cultural Contexts: Theory and Criticism. Ed. Gita Rajan and Radhika Mohanram. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1995. Print.

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Contacto con el autor: [email protected]

Título: “La frontera Mexicano Americana como fuente del entendimiento de las historias locales y de la Identidad: Caramelo de Sandra Cisneros”.Fecha de recepción: 20 de julio de 2013. Fecha de aceptación: 2 de agosto de 2013.Palabras clave: Literatura mexicoamericana, Narrativa de vida de la frontera, Desterritorialización, Narrativa híbrida, Identidad Cultural.

Title: “Sandra Cisneros´ Caramelo: The Mexican American Border Life Story as a Knowledge Source of Understanding Local Histories and Indentity.”Date of submission: July 20th, 2013. Date of acceptance: August 2nd

Key words: Mexican American Literature, Border life Stories, Deterritorialization, Hybrid Narrative, Cultural Identity.

Documents

Redalyc.Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo: The Mexican American