Prompt 1
In Paula, Isabel Allende mixes together memoir (which is factual) with a fictionalized version of her family history. In Zoot Suit, Luis Valdez mixes together historical fact about the Sleepy Lagoon Murders and the Zoot Suit riots with fictionalized situations and characters. Compare and contrast the ways that Allende and Valdez mix reality and fiction. Are their approaches similar? Are there approaches different? What insight or meaning do we gather from noticing these similarities or differences?
For this prompt, you should also include at least one research source that you gather from the library's databases that gives insight into the historical veracity of one of the works.
Prompt 2
In Mexican Village, Josefina Niggli paints a fictionalized portrait of rural Mexico and its inhabitants. In Chicano, Richard Vázquez does the same. Compare and contrast the ways that Niggli and Vázquez present rural Mexico and its inhabitants. How are their approaches similar? How are their approaches different? What insight or meaning do we gather from noticing these similarities or differences?
For this prompt, you should also include at least one research source that you gather from the library's databases that gives insight into trends regarding the literary and/or artistic depictions of Mexico and its inhabitants.
Prompt 3
In Mexican Village, Josefina Niggli paints a fictionalized portrait of rural Mexico and its inhabitants. In Pocho, José Antonio Villareal does the same. Compare and contrast the ways that Niggli and Vázquez present rural Mexico and its inhabitants. How are their approaches similar? How are their approaches different? What insight or meaning do we gather from noticing these similarities or differences?
For this prompt, you should also include at least one research source that you gather from the library's databases that gives insight into trends regarding the literary and/or artistic depictions of Mexico and its inhabitants.
Zoot Suit and Other Plays by
This anthology includes three of playwright and screenwriter Luis Valdez's most important and recognized plays, Zoot Suit, Bandido! and I Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Badges, and an introduction by noted theater critic Dr. Jorge Huerta of the University of California-San Diego. Valdez is the director of the famous farm-worker theater, El Teatro Campesino.
Paula by
One of the most popular and acclaimed of Latin American authors presents an unforgettable memoir. An exquisitely rendered, deeply moving mother-daughter story that doubles as Allende's autobiography, Paula is a prodigious evocation and a hymn to life, written from the heart.
Mexican Village by
Introduction by Maria Herrera-Sobek Crammed with delightful folk tales and legends, this is a novel about the people in one post-Revolutionary northern Mexico village.
Chicano by
A bestseller when it was published in 1970 at the height of the Mexican-American civil rights movement, Chicano unfolds the fates and fortunes of the Sandoval family, who flee the chaos and poverty of the Mexican Revolution and begin life anew in the United States. Patriarch Hector Sandoval works the fields and struggles to provide for his family even as he faces discrimination and injustice. Of his children, only Pete Sandoval is able to create a brighter existence, at least for a time. But when Pete's daughter Mariana falls in love with David, an Anglo student, it sets in motion a clash of cultures. David refuses to marry Mariana, fearing the reaction of his family and friends. Mariana, pregnant with David's child, is trapped between two worlds and shunned by both because of the man she loves. The complications of their relationship speak volumes -- even today -- about the shifting sands of racial politics in America. In his foreword, award-winning author Rubén Martínez reflects on the historical significance of Chicano's initial publication and explores how cultural perceptions have changed since the story of the Sandoval family first appeared in print.
Pocho by
Jose Antonio Villarreal illuminates here the world of "pochos," Americans whose parents come to the United States from Mexico. Set in Depression-era California, the novel focuses on Richard, a young pocho who experiences the intense conflict between loyalty to the traditions of his family's past and attraction to new ideas. Richard's struggle to achieve adulthood as a young man influenced by two worlds reveals both the uniqueness of the Mexican-American experiences and its common ties with the struggles of all Americans--whatever their past.