SOURCE: Schiavone, Sister James David. “Distinct Voices in the Chicano Short Story: Anaya's Outreach, Portillo Trambley's Outcry, Rosaura Sánchez's Outrage.” The Americas Review 16, no. 2 (summer 1988): 68-81.

[In the following essay, Schiavone contrasts the short fiction of Rudolfo Anaya, Portillo Trambley, and Rosaura Sánchez.]

A new vitality, both stylistically and thematically, is evident in the contemporary Chicano short story through the distinctive voices of Rudolfo A. Anaya, Estela Portillo Trambley and Rosaura Sánchez. Energetically diverse writers, who distinguish themselves in exhibiting a clearly-defined commitment to artistic craftsmanship, they have demonstrated great individuality in modes of narration, structural organization and thematic concerns. Each writer has brought a unique tone to the short story: Anaya's persevering expression of outreach, Portillo Trambley's persuasive outcry for freedom, and Rosaura Sánchez's penetrating outrage.

In examining the work of the authors, certain discoveries present themselves. Anaya's outreach is toward man's sense of place, a sense of belonging. It is always seeking a harmony, a fusion between man and his landscape: a specific piece of land that assists man to know himself and, by extension, to communicate this sense of belonging to other men. Anaya claims, “We have to come out of our experience, our own tradition, culture, roots, our sense of language, of story, and deal with that … We must define ourselves from our own stance. We are who we create.”¹ Anaya's journey to self-discovery is not enclosed within an insular, self-contained world but rather moves outward toward an expansive, all-embracing universe.

Portillo Trambley's outcry is a complaint against the subjugation of women in a male-dominated society. It is a plea for women to be self-determined, responsible individuals. It is a constant objection to the enslavement of any woman, from any place, at any time. When the writer was asked the question, “How do you perceive your role as a writer vis-a-vis literature itself?” she answered, “I would like to extend myself as a writer and find a U.S. audience. Not so much to be read because I am a minority writer, but because people can find themselves in what I write … all people. To be the kind of a writer to go beyond the local and contemporary, to find a common denominator in unifying people.”² It is not difficult to perceive that she has been successful in extending her outcry for liberation toward all women regardless of nationality.

The outrage voiced by Rosaura Sánchez is indignation leveled primarily against the exploitation and injustice experienced by the Chicanos at the hands of Anglo culture. Her grievances are sometimes directed toward the inequities and mistreatment found in the Chicano male-female relationship or the abuse brought upon Chicanos by their own people. No matter who the recipient, the voice of Sánchez remains adamantly furious. In an introduction to a special issue on literary criticism published in La Palabra, she claims, “Se dice comunmente que el escritor refleja su época pero hay una gran diferencia entre ser portavoz de la ideología dominante y reflejar las contradicciones sociales de una época desde un planteamiento crítico. El escritor puede entonces distanciarse críticamente de la ideología dominante o, por lo contrario, exaltarla.”³ After examining her works, the reader is not left in doubt in reference to Sánchez's critical stance. It is a position which juxtaposes the United States cultural values with the realities of the Chicano experience. Her voice of outrage and infuriated pain reaffirms the role of the artist in the social struggle of the people.

Closer textual analysis of several short stories will reveal the artistic vision, the subtlety and profundity with which these three writers explore and validate their thematic concerns. The center of narrative attention in Anaya's collection of short stories, The Silence of the Llano,⁴ is the land, this sense of place that is extremely essential to the writer's themes and structural patterns. Anaya believes “When the writer has incorporated his sense of place into art and the entire sense of the landscape—characters, emotion, experience, detail and story—permeates his craft, the readers will respond, and that response is the beginning of a new epiphany.”⁵ Anaya has frequently stated his belief in the importance of people seeking harmony with the land and the llano is his taking off point. It is from this structural framework of the llano, with chaos enclosing and threatening it, that Anaya attempts to establish a guide for harmonious living. Though the protagonist may be center stage, there is always a second protagonist sharing the drama: the llano. The reader depends upon the landscape for his information, impression and interpretation of the characters. Everything revolves around it, people are defined by their acceptance or rejection of the land and, in the final analysis, it is the measuring stick by which one lives or dies.

A tone of desolation and loneliness permeates the title story, “The Silence of the Llano,” as the reader observes the daily lives of the people living on the vast plain. The first story sets the stage for the legends, customs and folkloric elements which envelope the entire collection in an anecdotal, conversational quality that conveys the feeling of “overhearing” the story being told to the narrator. On the opening page of the title story we read “Long ago, the friends his parents had known stopped visiting Rafael. The people whispered that the silence of the llano had taken Rafael's soul, and they respected his right to live alone” (9). At age fifteen, Rafael had left the bitterness of loneliness after his parents had died suddenly in a blizzard on the road to Las Animas. Later, Rafael marries and the narrator reveals, “And that is how the immense silence of the land the heavy burden of loneliness came to be lifted from Rafael's heart” (11). The llano is portrayed as heady, fragrant and bright to complement Rafael's feelings of happiness, but when Rafael's wife dies in childbirth, the llano is once again seen desolate and silent. Encased in his desperate loneliness, Rafael does not speak to his daughter for sixteen years. He moves about like a ghost, a haunted man whom the “llano had conquered and claimed” (18). Anaya does not portray his characters as rebelling against the harshness of life on the llano, rather they seek to be in harmony with it and to find a reason for living because of it. The land consistently reveals an important aspect of Anaya's work which informs each of the stories in The Silence of the Llano. He believes: “just as the natural end of all art is to make us well and to cure our souls, so is our relationship to the earth and its power. I do not merely mean that awe and sense of good feeling which we experience in the face of grandeur and beauty in nature, I mean that there is an actual healing power which the epiphany of place provides.”⁶ At the conclusion of the story, it is this restorative power of the earth that brings Rafael in touch with reality once again. He communicates with his daughter through the seed planting of the garden. Through the peach trees at the edge of the garden where Rafael's wife was buried, and where symbolically Rafael had been entombed all these years, there was to come a rebirth of life and love. A love which would destroy his painful silence and loneliness. The writer has artistically permeated the short story, the characters, the land, all of nature, in an atmosphere of desolation, silence and loneliness. Anaya succeeds in reader identification with Rafael's sentiments. “The Silence of the Llano” attests to Anaya's belief in the regenerative power of love and his denial of victory to the forces of death. The earth has provided its latent energy and healing power to Rafael and by extension to his daughter, Rita. The fusion of earth and man has brought wholeness.

Anaya's artistic blending of dreams, reveries and legendary—based concepts is one of the most salient features of his work. In “The Silence of the Llano” there is the intermeshing of these elements in daily living making them totally acceptable to the reader as they convey increased layers of meaning to the basic plot. The dreams in the short story are not described at length; simply stated, they serve as warning or foreshadowings of events. Rita's dreams and nightmares predict her rape by the hunters, “she saw the faces of the men, heard their laughter and the sounds of the rifle's penetrating roar as it shattered the silence of the llano” (24). The reader discovers later that these same men were later to rape her. Rafael, the main protagonist, drifts in and out of reveries, haunted by the face and the voice of his wife. The reveries are all-pervasive, strong enough to drown out the present. They provide a confusion, not allowing Rafael to be fully present to a reality that would embrace his daughter. In one episode of the story, the legendary-based concept of death under the guise of an old woman is depicted as Doña Rufina, the old midwife, who prepares for her death as she puts everything in order and waits. The narrator states, “She felt light and airy, as if she were entering a pleasant dream” (19). Death is seen as a dark figure, an old woman. It is viewed as a natural part of life; it is welcomed and part of its pleasantness comes from the fact that Doña Rufina hears “the voices of old friends she had known on the llano, and she saw the faces of the many babies she had delivered during her lifetime” (19). Death, like life, is in harmony with the llano.

Through the constant repetition and reinforcement of certain motifs and themes—loneliness, alienation, frustration, a sense of mystery toward the land, and the blending of everyday living through folklore, traditions and legends—there emerge several structural and stylistic patterns that govern the remaining stories in the collection. “The Silence of the Llano” establishes the landscape as the most important structural element in Anaya's work. It also reveals a temporal sequence of timelessness, “unmarked” except by the seasons of the year and the changes in the land. Time, for the author, is energy, an enduring moment when man can reach out and touch the heart of the earth. Quite deliberately, Anaya does not utilize much dialogue in the story; it is, after all, about a terrible silence and desolation. There are poetic descriptive passages which create an ambience that permeates the entire collection. Characters are revealed through the statements made about them by the narrator; these observations convey both physical and emotional attributes. The third person narrative point of view gives the story an objectivity and the narrator a credibility derived from his omniscience.

Elements of “costumbrismo” abound in the short story, “El Velorio.” It teems with local color and traditions in the vivid descriptions of the funeral procession, preparations of food and drink for the wake, and the singing of the eulogies. The various aspects of the wake are presented in realistic detail where the reader's awareness of death is heightened as the townspeople “celebrate the brevity of life.” The opening page of the story, replete with sights, sounds and similes, establishes a rhythm and a tone that energizes the remainder of the narrative:

The deep water of the canal dumped Henry in the river, and the muddy current of the river sang as it enveloped its burden. It was a high river that carried the body southward, towards the land of the sun, beyond succor, past the last blessing of las cruces, into the dissolution that lay beyond el paso de la muerte. Dams could not stop the body that rolled and turned like a golden fish returning to its home. It was not until the body found a quiet pool that wires of a jetty would reach out like death's fingers and tangle the body in their grasp. Now the cold waters rumbled with the same insanity which had once driven Henry. The sun brought out an innocent fisherman who cast his hook and snagged dead Henry's heart.

(101)

The rhythmic sense of life and death established in the opening lines persists throughout the narrative where the writer relates the difficulties Rufus encounters in giving his son, Henry, a proper burial. The coroner insisted that the law dictated the body should be disposed of as soon as possible. Rufus remains adamant. He takes the casket and begins the procession to his simple home. The narrator describes the mournful procession with its singing and praying. The portrayal that follows of the preparation of the food by the women of the town is vivid, colorful and realistic. The reader has the sense of being a participant rather than a mere observer:

Nimble fingers pressed the round tortillas that became the bread of the wake. Pots of beans were brought and their rich fragrance blended into the aroma of the roasting chile verde. … An old friend from Belen brought a goat which he butchered in the back yard, and soon there was tender carne de cabrito roasting in the oven. In Los Padillas, the blood of the lamb was saved and made into rich blood pudding which made the gift that was offered with el pésame to Rufus and his wife. Bowls of carne adobada, skillets of red chile de ristra made by hand, and pastelitos made of fried fruit also were brought until the tables in the kitchen were heaped high with food for the mourners.

(104-05)

The total description in its graphic realism envelops the reader in the customary community feasting brought about by the wake. It establishes a reader-contact that moves from mere observation to near participation as the reader is swept along by the vividly detailed description of the activities of the towns-people in support of Rufus. In the evening, the singing of the eulogies is led by Lazaro, “tall and gaunt like an old giant, gnarled alamo. Wrapped in his dusty World War I coat, he looked like an old prophet walking out of the pages of the Bible. Out of place in a world which called itself modern, he scoffed at time because his soul was timeless … he had long hair that fell like a lion's mane around his shoulder” (105). Despite his strange appearance, the reader is told that he possessed a very special talent, an extraordinary gift—he could make “God cry in Heaven.” He becomes the agent of unity as he draws the mourners together to sing and pray for Henry and by extension to support Rufus in his hour of need. Lazaro's singing is the blending of death and life which the wake celebrates. Anaya employs the wake as a structural unit around which Rufus receives some respite from his loneliness. It extends further to include the towns-people as the shell of their loneliness is broken in praying, eating and singing in unison with Rufus. The custom of the wake has manifested enormous harmony among all the townspeople of Barelas; it has served both the living and the dead. It is another manifestation that faithfully illustrates the shades of color that make up the fabric of the daily lives of the people of the llano. Through the wake, the land and the people have received vitality and harmony.

The same sense of timelessness that was evident in “The Silence of the Llano” is present in “El Velorio.” “El Velorio” expresses present time in the praying and singing, and, on another level, there is time in which the mourners are brought to a vision of eternity, “There was a union with the rotting flesh in the sealed casket, and the illusion of life fell away like a veil as they made the connection with death and eternity” (107). The conclusion of the story brings the mourners back to chronological time as they realize they had prayed since dawn. Though the reader is brought back to “clock time” there remains a sense of measureless time.

Juan Rodríguez has noted that Portillo Trambley's Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings “reveals a writer who is concerned with the struggle of women against men without regard for distinction of class, race, or ethnicity. That her characters are Spanish looking or sounding is coincidental to her main concern.”⁷ No matter where the settings nor what nationality involved, the writer's thematic concern remains constant: an outcry for women's liberation from male domination and from the antiquated social norms imposed by society. The writer probes deeply and continually into the female psyche and situation and views her women protagonists as isolated, torn apart, anguished as they attempt to achieve a sense of individual fulfillment.

“The Paris Gown,” the first story in the collection of Rain of Scorpions and Other Stories,⁸ set in Paris, portrays Clotilde recounting to her granddaughter, Theresa, how she outwitted her father and her sister when she was a young girl. Her father insisted she marry Don Ignacio, a wealthy widower, “It was a contract marriage between parents of means. Daughters did not have a say in the matter. It was an excellent way of joining two fortunes by blood” (6). In an atmosphere of reminiscence and lively conversation, the story reveals Clotilde's plan to thwart her father's wishes and to attain exactly what she wanted. Clotilde's father purchased a lovely Parisian gown which she requested for her engagement ball. It was the ultimate in style, elegance and beauty. Clotilde explains that her plan was a “final revenge against the injustice of men” (17). On the night of the engagement ball when everyone waited anxiously to see Clotilde descend the staircase in her beautiful Paris gown, she appeared stark naked. Clotilde is whisked off to Paris, banished to save her father further pain, but she had nonetheless accomplished her goal for freedom. She tells her granddaughter that her plan was a “kind of insanity finding its own method to fight what I considered a slavery” (8). Clotilde's self-assertiveness had given her an enduring and valuable independence.

The setting of Paris establishes a cosmopolitan and sophisticated environment to the story line which is further enhanced by the manner in which the writer employs external objects such as Clotilde's room, her art treasures and her garden to reflect Clotilde's personality traits. It is a stylistic device often used by Portillo Trambley in her work. It has been observed that the author “transforms a place into a symbolic organ for the presentation of her character.”⁹ This appears to be a constant in each of her short stories that brings to the narratives a fuller understanding of the individual personalities of each of the protagonists. This stylistic technique brings a vigor both physical and mental to the characters. The description of Clotilde's room succinctly expresses her inner feelings and quality of spirit:

Theresa felt Clotilde had a deep and lasting comprehension to her place in the universe. How fresh and open was the world in this room … the room itself was a composite of what Clotilde had become in the life process. Every piece of art and sculpture gave the impact of humanness. The colors were profuse and rich; they seemed to touch impulses and awaken still undefined passions. Yes, it was a room with a singular ferocity for life.

(1-2)

The reader is told the art treasures are without “doctrinaire implication,” and that Clotilde's garden had “its own kind of freedom. It had no symmetry, no pattern, the lawn and the trailing vines, the cypress trees and profuse flowers had only been given a kind of order, only to free the life from complete chaos. Everything reaches for the sun in its own way” (4). This stylistic device of utilizing place as symbol for the presentation of the characters becomes a hallmark of Portillo Trambley's work which emphasizes the uniqueness of the protagonists while at the same time it strengthens her outcry for their release from subjugation. In “The Paris Gown” Clotilde's room, her art treasures, her garden, all portray her as a colorful, independent woman who had to resort to inappropriate, nontraditional behavior to accomplish her goal of liberation. To satisfy her enormous zest for life was to respond to her individuality.

There is an assertiveness and uniqueness in each of Portillo Trambley's female protagonists which portrays them as strong, decisive people who will go to any lengths to pursue personal freedom. In the short story entitled “Duende,” Marusha, an unhappy, gypsy Andalusian girl lives with her mother, Mama Tante and her brother, Triano, in a tenement in the U.S. Marusha cannot understand her mother and brother's acceptance of the ugliness, poverty and oppression which surround their lives. Marusha is determined to extricate herself from the poverty and oppression in her life. The writer portrays Marusha's adamant decision to bury herself in books, to advance herself so that she can leave her wretched life at the tenement. There are two opposing attitudes revealed: Marusha, who believes “in words and the shiny new things of this world” (66), and Mama Tante and Triano, who adhere to the “duende,” a spirit of personal freedom. It is upon these two oppositions that the story is based.

Marvin A. Lewis believes “Marusha is trying to break away from the old Andalusian traditions of her gypsy ancestors which are incongruous with her own value system—right or wrong.”¹⁰ Marusha continually rejects the life her mother and brother are living. Triano knows his sister's aspirations are quite different from his, “You like books; you want to get ahead. You'll do it. You'll find what you want. That is your kind of freedom” (58). Triano represents feeling, emotions, acceptance which symbolize the spirit of the duende; Marusha allows for no spontaneity, her goals are well defined, and her actions follow a well-planned design for her life.

The reminder of the story is divided into five parts, each introduced by Biblical passages from the Book of Genesis. The narrative section invites contrast and comparison with the Biblical text so that a new layer of meaning is then brought to the narrative. Selecting the Book of Genesis as a point of reference is a stylistic device which enables Portillo Trambley to inject and added narrational voice commenting on the striking difference between the spirit of duende, in which things happen unforeseeably or accidentally, and the Biblical pattern in which the creation of the world emerges as carefully planned and accomplished.

On the one hand, the story may be viewed as one woman's desire to extricate herself from an oppressive existence, and, on the other hand, it has a more universal context. The concluding sentence of the story, “So God created Man in his own image” (67), extends to both men and women reminding us that all of God's creatures are good, each with its own individual design; each is free to follow a unique inner spirit. Spontaneity and design become the energizing elements of life from which one must choose. According to Portillo Trambley, a woman's independence is of the utmost importance, always to be maintained and safeguarded.

As in “The Paris Gown,” the writer employs the same stylistic method for the presentation of character in the portrayal of Marusha. Here we find the ceiling of the tenement to be the communicator of Marusha's feelings and aspiration. The reader comes to know her more explicitly, “She opened her eyes to the familiar, tormented ceiling … faded, peeling … aimless. Canals and tributaries of artless cracks, a dedication to an emptiness” (57). The imagery of the ceiling continues to permeate the narrative, “She stared at the cracks that now wore a pained expression of futility” (62). The ceiling then reveals the face of Miss Marsh, the librarian whom Marusha wanted to emulate. Finally, we read “The cracks were now swirls of happy feelings, each one a step up into a clean successful world of efficiency and good manners” (62). Like Clotilde, Marusha is a young woman caught between two worlds where she must choose between acquiescence or self-governance.

Portillo Trambley's penchant for dialectical structure is evidenced in her short stories. It is a skillful device for emphasizing the importance of decision-making in the lives of each of the women protagonists. It underscores a response to the author's voice of outcry as each woman reacts to the restrictions being placed upon her individuality and freedom. In “The Paris Gown” Clotilde represents freedom, liberty, and her father is the epitome of restriction and oppression. “Duende” portrays Marusha as the symbol of design and deliberation and Triano as chance and instinct. Each of Portillo Trambley's stories utilizes the stylistic device of conflictual opposites to provide a dramatic conclusion. In each case, the women protagonists take whatever action, pay whatever price, go to whatever lengths, to accomplish their goals. Portillo Trambley's women protagonists are self-determining, prototypical images of the females. They affirm their manhood while struggling against a hostile environment.

In Anaya's fictional world we find the earth to be the source of ultimate strength and wisdom; in Portillo Trambley's universe it is the self-reliance and fierce determination of women that is of the utmost importance.

The opening lines of Rosaura Sánchez's “Se Arremangó Las Mangas”¹¹ finds Julio Jarrín enroute to a committee meeting to consider Professor Jones for tenure. In a flashback Julio is seen driving to the committee meeting. He remembers how he was mistaken for a waiter when he first came to Los Angeles. He was attending a reception for new professors; it was an unusually hot day; he was dressed like his colleagues in a short-sleeved sport shirt but nonetheless a woman beckoned to him, “Hey, boy, you can bring me another margarita.” Since that day he always wore a suit and tie. That was the way one was expected to dress in the Anglo academic world. Julio's professional ambition leads him to separate himself from other Chicanos, “No era mexicano. Era americano, con los mismos derechos que tenían los anglosajones” (150). He neither associates with Chicano students nor Chicano professors, hoping this separation will make him more acceptable to the Anglo culture. Julio is both frantic and rigorous in setting up a pattern of behavior that will make him more acceptable to the Anglo culture.

The tenure case of Professor Jones is a difficult one for he is a minority (black) who has very few publications. In the discussion that ensued, Julio's colleagues admitted Professor Jones was a good professor, “atraía a cantidades de alumnos, pero porque era fácil, porque no exigía mucho” (151), and though he had published a book which had received great praise from the public, “era parecido a su tesis doctoral y después de todo, el tema … no era realmente académico … el trabajo era mediocre … le faltaba metodología.” The discussion terminates on the note that it was not the kind of work that this university expected of its professors. Finally, Julio addressed the group. He spoke thirty minutes focusing on the excellent rapport Jones had with his students, his excellent teaching and his introduction of minority history into the departmental curriculum. Julio felt elated because he knew his opinion would make a difference to his colleagues, “Se llamó a la votación y brevemente se anunció el resultado: 20 en contra del profesor Jones y uno a favor” (152). The fact that no one valued his opinion was both disillusioning and devastating to Julio. Julio felt a terrible alienation, realizing he neither belonged to the Anglo academic circle nor to the Chicano community. However, it was not too late for Julio to learn to fight, “Se quitó el saco y se aflojó el nudo de la corbata. Poco después se arremangó las mangas” (152). Symbolically, he did all the things he felt he should not do when he wanted so desperately to be accepted by the Anglo culture. These are symbolic acts which free him from his servitude to an Anglo society.

The story is tersely written; there are no poetic descriptions as found in the work of Anaya nor the emotional outbursts of Portillo Trambley's women protagonists. With her usual economy of expression, Sánchez reveals the irony of Julio's situation as he looks at the campus: “El campo universitario se veía verde, con sus árboles y sus aceros muy bien cuidados. Un verdadero country club, y el era miembro de este club campestre, miembro vitalicio” (150). The narrator established the idea quite readily that, though the university may indeed be a country club, it is neither part of the Chicano experience nor is Julio a vital member of that club.

The writer's laconic method of expression is presented in the title of the story in which the verb “se arremangó” has a dual meaning: rolling up his sleeves is a symbolic act of negating the Anglo culture and it is a sign of reaching a firm decision. It is not too late for Julio to survive within his true identity as a Chicano and as a lively participant in that culture.

Sánchez extends her outrage from discrimination within academic circles to the release of women from oppressive relationships between Chicano males and females, as narrated in “Una Noche …”¹² It is from the setting of a laundromat that the story has its beginning. Florencia, mother of three, whose husband Samaniego spends his hard-earned wages drinking in the cantina with his friends, is presented to the reader in the midst of a dilemma: should she follow the cultural traditions which dictate that she accept Samaniego and her situation or decide to take her rightful position in society? Several people enter the laundromat, each giving an opinion about women's place in society. Florencia wants to own a car, get a job and have some dominion over her own life. The author sets up polarities and contrasts: 1) her father and her husband believe man's pride and virility would be tainted if Florencia went to work; 2) Florencia's friends and acquaintances give various opinions ranging from submission to her husband's whims to asserting her own independence. The conclusion of the narrative reads, “Ya era la una de la mañana cuando sintió que llegaba el carro. Se levantó inmediatamente, se fue a su recamara y le echó la llave a la puerta. Mañana arreglarían cuentas.” One can readily agree with Charles M. Tatum in reference to Florencia: “Her decision to end the cycle of oppression and submissiveness within the marriage comes slowly, and is therefore more credible.”¹³ Sánchez displays her predilection for a pattern of logical argumentation. Each of the protagonists in the short stories must choose a right decision from the diverse opinions and ideas being presented.

The first person narrative in “Crónica del barrio”¹⁴ evokes a sense of intimacy as the reader listens attentively to the story which is being told by the narrator. However, we soon discover the narrator is not a participant in the events of the story; she merely joins the reader in “listening” to Sofía's story unfold. The narrator is never identified except as a student attending the University of Texas who receives her information from her mother during vacation visits and occasional phone calls. Sofía's economic and social problems provide the short story's thematic nucleus. She is abused and raped by her gringo brother-in-law, and as the story unfolds, the reader discovers the numerous difficulties encountered by Sofia: 1) she is unable to speak English; 2) she is constantly fleeing from the law because she is an undocumented worker; 3) she is fired many times from her jobs because of unfair hiring practices. The devaluation of the Mexican peso further complicates the economic problems for the poor factory workers. After working two years for a General Motors factory, Sofia is fired and the narrator lists Sofia's deplorable salary scale which reveals the collective crime and responsibility of the U.S. corporation. “En 1975 había ganado ＄48 por semana, pero la devaluación comenz” a ganar 45 centavos la hora: a principios solo le salía a ＄22 por semana. Pero para 1980 ya ganaba 72 centavos la hora, o sea, unos ＄34 por semana pero los dólares se los pagaban en pesos” (66). The recording of Sofia's salary scale underscores the unfair practices of General Motors. Later the company fires Sofía rather than pay the appropriate wage. The writer directs her accusatory remarks toward the U.S. economic and legal systems.

Rosaura Sánchez's narratives are further intensified by the technical devices employed by the writer. At the outset of each story there emerges a pattern of: 1) crisis/conflict, 2) juxtaposition of two or more opinions, 3) ensuing discussion which includes organized facts, and 4) possible solutions or resolutions. In all three stories the protagonists attempt to resolve the dilemma by deliberately and reflectively choosing from among several possibilities. The design of thesis/antithesis/synthesis becomes, once again, the mode of narration. The author maintains her attitude of outrage and voices this not only through theme but through the structural and stylistic organization of her work. Sánchez maintains a critical view of the U.S. as it affects the Chicano's economic and social existence. Her voice of unmistakable hostility is artistically conveyed through the protagonists. Through Julio in “Se Arremangó las Mangas,” the theme of racial discrimination and prejudicial practices in U.S. universities is discussed. Florencia of “Una Noche …” symbolizes the victim of oppressive Chicano male-female relationships; and Sofia, the protagonist of “Crónica del barrio,” is a pathetic prey of the economic exploitation of U.S. industry toward the Chicano worker.

Once can readily agree with Sánchez when she expresses in her introduction to Requisa Treinta y Dos the interconnection between form and content, “La meta … es la producción de eventos donde contenido y forma alcancen una elaboracióm máxima y esto sólo se puede dar desde un planteamento dialéctico, donde lo estético, lo ideológico y lo intelectual se unan para reflejar la realidad.”¹⁵ It is the fusion of these elements that brings her narratives such intensity in their portrayal of Chicano reality.

The three writers bring to their fictional material a depth and a rich variety of perspectives: Anaya's lyrical vein with its mythic configuration; Portillo Trambley's dialogical, personal outlook; Rosaura Sánchez's shifts in narrational voice depicting numerous attitudes toward the same reality.

While the writers demonstrate a painstaking attention to the craft of fiction, they also emphasize the importance of their thematic concerns. Their voices are persistent and perceptible: Anaya's outreach with its belief in the regenerative power of the landscape; Portillo Trambley's outcry for the liberation of all women from any kind of subjugation; Sánchez's outrage at the deplorable conditions of the Chicano brought about by exploitation and injustice. The three authors have brought to the reader the fusion of concrete reality and universal concerns, of human suffering with its accompanying response of endurance and affirmation of life. Because of these writers, the Chicano short story has demonstrated a more heightened awareness and greater understanding of all men and women and the world in which they live and die. The voices of Rudolfo A. Anaya, Estela Portillo Trambley and Rosaura Sánchez have made a profound difference.

Notes

1. Juan Bruce-Novoa, Chicano Authors: Inquiry by Interview (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980), 194.

2. Chicano Authors, 172.

3. Introduction to special issue on literary criticism, La Palabra, 1:2 (1974), 1-2.

4. The Silence of the Llano (Berkeley, CA: Tonatiuh-Quinto Sol Publications, 1982).

5. “The Writer's Landscape: Epiphany in Landscape,” Latin American Literary Review, 5:10 (1977), 102.

6. “The Writer's Landscape,” 101.

7. Juan Rodríguez, “Short Story,” A Decade of Chicano Literature (1970-1979), Eds. Luis Leal et al. (Santa Barbara, CA: Editorial La Causa), 44.

8. Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings (Berkeley, CA: Tonatiuh-Quinto Sol Publications, 1975).

9. Alfred Mirandé and Evangelina Enríquez, La Chicana: The Mexican American Woman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 197.

10. Rev. of Rain of Scorpions and Other Writings, Revista Chicano Riqueña, 5:3 (1977), 51.

11. “Se Arremangó las Mangas,” The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe, 2 (1982), 149-52.

12. “Una Noche,” The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe, 3 (1976), 245-48.

13. Charles M. Tatum, Chicano Literature (Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers, 1982), 88.

14. “Crónica del barrio,” Palabra Nueva: Cuentos Chicanos, Eds. Ricardo Aguilar et al., (El Paso: Texas Western Press, 1984), 66.

15. Requisa Treinta y Dos (La Jolla, CA: Chicano Research Publications, 1979), xiii.