a sudden storm, with its lightning, sent fear through his captors, convincing them of his supernatural clout. Released in a panic, Chuyito's fate was eventually sealed by a Judas-like betrayal for "fifty cents," pointing him out to the police.

Colonel Rosario Chayo Cuamea

Colonel Cuamea strides vividly through the dreams of Loreto Maldonado. A fellow Yaqui Indian, Chayo is recalled not only as a formidable leader during the Mexican Revolution but also as the one who "deflowered death."

Through Loreto's dreams and recollections, which he admits may be tainted by television tales, glimpses of Colonel Cuamea emerge. As the narrative unfolds, his story intertwines with that of a young Mexican veteran of another conflict, the war in Vietnam, painting a fuller picture of Cuamea’s enduring legacy.

Cuamea embodies the spirit of a Pancho Villa-esque hero, steadfast against centuries of oppression by white settlers encroaching on Yaqui Nation lands. From his youth, Cuamea pledges his life to champion his people's cause. "With a life molded on the battlefield, sun-burnt and battle-hardened, the Revolution was Rosario Cuamea's natural calling."

The author breathes life into death itself, naming it the Skinny Lady, and depicts Cuamea as being enamored with her. In the moment of his demise, Cuamea is unsettlingly described as violating the Skinny Lady.

Don Mario Davalos de Cocuch

Don Mario Davalos de Cocuch cuts the figure of a "bastard prince" with his slick demeanor. Rising from humble beginnings, he navigates the murky waters of politics and crime, "climbing the ranks by offering his wife's bed to influential men." During the Revolutionary War, he sides with the Federal Army against Pancho Villa. Ironically, his wartime injury comes not from combat, but from riding a sharp-spined horse, leaving him with a "sphincter injury." Don Mario's life is emblematic of the greed and corruption that flourished post-war. He owns a brothel and meets his end at the hands of a vengeful brother of a girl he had coerced into prostitution.

Bobby Foxye

One day, on the bustling sidewalk, Loreto encounters a young, unkempt man with long, hippie-style hair—Bobby Foxye. As his story unfolds, readers learn of a boy nurtured by parents whose sole ambition was wealth accumulation. Bobby symbolizes the discontented American youth of the early 70s, spoiled yet repulsed by the capitalist framework of their upbringing, opting for an illusion of poverty as rebellion.

Despite his family's affluence, Bobby's upbringing lacked emotional warmth. He attended elite boarding schools that "offered no homely warmth," yet he preferred them to the cold, money-centered atmosphere at home. "They swam furiously in an enormous sea of numbers," the narrator observes.

Eventually, Bobby is coerced into law school by a father eager to retire and pass down his business. For two years, Bobby distances himself, taking their money but neglecting his studies. When he finally returns, disheveled and unwashed, he tells his parents he has no desire to pursue law, yearning simply "to live, love, and be left in peace." Infuriated, his father strikes him, accusing him of "stealing my trust, exploiting me through deceit." Bobby retorts, "Haven’t you gotten rich by deceiving the whole world?"

La Malquerida

La Malquerida, known formally as Rosenda Perez Sotolin, is a beautiful young woman ensnared into prostitution. Through her, Méndez gives a face to the otherwise anonymous women in the trade. Her journey begins with deceit, lured to Tijuana under false pretenses of honest work, only to be imprisoned and sold to the abusive Tony Baby. La Malquerida's story underscores the harsh truth that justice serves the wealthy alone.

Lorenzo Linares

In the unforgiving desert, Lorenzo, one of the tale's two poets, meets his end. He embarks on a perilous journey across the sands, driven to find work in the United States to support his family. Like so many immigrants, he carries the weight of his loved ones' hopes on his shoulders, yet succumbs to thirst along the way.

Others in his group reach the border, but Lorenzo is laid to rest in a shallow, sandy grave. Vate, his companion, speculates that Lorenzo was so captivated by the desert's stark beauty and its luminous moonscape that he "forgot his mortal constraints, becoming part of the vision he admired." Lorenzo forgoes rest, entranced by the silent, moonlit dunes, believing himself "at the bottom of an enchanted sea."

The author crafts Lorenzo as a symbol of the eternal pilgrim. The narrator reflects on such travelers who "journey north, opposite their ancestors, on a pilgrimage devoid of spiritual guidance, bearing tales without merit or novelty, only tragedy."

Following Lorenzo's death, Vate continues his desert voyage. As the story concludes, Vate, unable to reconcile with Lorenzo's loss, pens an elegy in his memory before taking his own life.

Little Jesus of Bethlehem
See Chuyito

Loreto Maldonado

Loreto Maldonado
In the opening passages of Pilgrims in Aztlán, the narrator paints Loreto Maldonado as a man whose soul peers into the past like a telescope, constantly revisiting times long gone. At 80, Loreto stands with more memories behind him than moments ahead, and yet it is not merely age that draws his gaze backward. In Tijuana, a border town where despair lurks amidst the transient wealth of tourists, life exacts a heavy toll. For Loreto, confronting the present demands an enormous strength, not due to his frail body and relentless hunger, but because human cruelty drains his spirit. Despite this, Loreto remains a man of pride, discipline, and unwavering dignity, even when days pass with nothing to fill his stomach.

It is through Loreto's eyes that Méndez spins his narrative. As he roams the city streets, searching for vehicles to wash for a mere fifty cents to buy a day's meal, he encounters the diverse tapestry of characters within the story. When fatigue overtakes him, and he rests upon the sidewalk, dreams transport him to past visions. Through these reveries, tales unfold—of warriors and healers, of those lost to vice and war, of corrupt officials and starved children, and of nameless travelers pursuing the distant promise of prosperity. These stories brim with longing and sorrow, and Loreto captures them as a storyteller would, rescuing the essence of these lives from oblivion, as Salvador Rodriguez del Pino notes in the Reference Guide to American Literature. In Loreto, the oral tradition thrives, echoing Méndez’s plea to preserve the essence of Mexican heritage.

In the reflections of his dreams and his daylight visions, Loreto often senses that his people exist only "to bear witness to how everybody else was fortunate." The impoverished and forsaken stand as a dark mirror, one which the fortunate refuse to peer into and see their own humanity. Loreto's battle, much like that of all the destitute characters in this tale, is "to reach a satisfying consciousness of self-worth, of his identity as a human," as Oscar U. Somoza articulates in his article "The Mexican Element in the Fiction of Miguel Méndez."

At times, Loreto's dreams blur reality to the point that upon awakening, he struggles to recognize his own reflection. One day, while gazing into a shop window, he recoils, seeing an old man marred by a life of hardship—"a complete antithesis of feigned dignity." When hunger gnaws at him, his stomach's rumblings transform into plaintive murmurs, begging for sustenance. This embarrasses Loreto, making him irate for breaking his personal code of honor. Yet, he continues to exist, "dreaming that he’s on an unknown planet and confined to oblivion like a foreigner without a country," ashamed of occupying space meant for another. However displaced he might feel, Loreto refuses to surrender the "honor which was in direct conflict with his chronic hunger."

Loreto, a Yaqui Indian who once fought alongside Pancho Villa in the Mexican Revolution, embodies the ancient history of Mexico. He represents the indigenous people caught between two unforgiving worlds: one, the inhospitable mountains they are confined to, and the other, the urban ghettos where they eke out an existence. Their choices are grim—perishing from hunger in their desolate lands or risking death crossing deserts for migrant labor in the fertile fields of the United States. Through Loreto, readers witness the plight and perseverance of his people as they navigate these harsh choices. The repercussions of their decisions play out in the streets and bars, sometimes landing in Loreto’s lap, as when he weeps while holding a traumatized Vietnam soldier.

Ultimately, Loreto meets his end. His body is discovered in a dilapidated shack pieced together from discarded materials like empty cans, beer bottles, and weathered advertisements depicting food. "The front part of Loreto’s house and more than half the door...were covered with a...picture of a steak so real you could almost smell its aroma." In death, the dignity that buoyed Loreto in his final years crumbles away. His remains are wrapped in a tattered tarp and discarded in the back of a rickety garbage truck.

Frankie Perez

Frankie Perez
The author paints a vivid arrival of Frankie Perez, stumbling through the worn sidewalks of Tijuana until he collapses into Loreto’s arms. As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Perez perishes in the Vietnam War. He symbolizes the Mexican youth who journey with their families to the United States, seeking improved futures. They toil alongside their parents in the fields and attend school at every opportunity, often sacrificing their language and cultural roots for education. In this era portrayed by the novel, upon reaching eighteen, these young men are conscripted en masse, sent to distant lands where they become mere pawns in a war devoid of victory or honor.

When Frankie is called to serve, he feels a swell of pride in defending the nation he has embraced as his own. “He had a sacred duty to defend his country. His beloved country, so just and generous with all its sons.” Yet, as Frankie navigates the thick, suffocating jungles of Vietnam, and witnesses the horrific brutality of war, he trembles at the thought that even the wild creatures must sense “that the earth was inhabited by a being that was all cruelty and viciousness.” Loreto weaves together Frankie's war saga with Colonel Cuamea’s revolution. Both were courageous and acclaimed warriors, but they differed profoundly: Cuamea battled on his homeland for his own people, while Perez fought in a distant land for a nation that exploited him.

The novel concludes with the devastating news reaching Frankie’s family that he has been killed in Vietnam. The shock unravels his father’s grasp on reality:

The bosses said that he had gone crazy because he was a real drunk. In part that was true . . . but he also went mad from working like an animal . . . for seeing his family . . . sunken in the cruelest of poverties . . . and because of the death of his Frankie.

Tony Baby

Tony Baby, a self-indulgent "libidinous gringo," loathes the very notion of work. Originating from the northern reaches of the border, the United States, he sneers, declaring that labor “is for burros, oxen and fools.” His grandmother, a formidable "hairy chested woman," amassed a fortune peddling hot dogs drenched in chili sauce, whimsically dubbed chili dogs to entice the Mexican-American community of southern California.

Tony's disdain for his grandmother runs deep, as she forces him to haul hot dogs in a cart and toil in the frigid confines of a massive refrigerator, stacking boxes of food. Yet, Tony’s contempt is shared by the men who toil for his grandmother. When they attempt to unionize for fair wages, she retaliates ruthlessly by summoning immigration authorities, leading to the arrest and deportation of two hundred workers back to Mexico.

Upon her death, Tony inherits her wealth and weds a woman devoid of love for him. Once she secures control over Tony’s fortune, she spurns him, refusing to share his bed. This rejection drives Tony to seek solace in the brothels along the border, lost in a delusion that he is a rapist immune to capture.

Rosenda Perez Sotolin

See La Malquerida

Vate

Vate, a poet and confidant of Lorenzo Linares, is forever marked by tragedy. During their arduous trek across the desert searching for work in the United States, Vate witnesses Lorenzo's demise. Haunted by his failure to save his friend, whom he had vowed to protect for Lorenzo's wife, Vate’s "mind became a falling star dragging along a tail of orphan words." Consumed by guilt, he channels his grief into an elegy, a poignant funeral poem commemorating Lorenzo, before tragically ending his own life.