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. . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him, with Related Readings
This novel, originally written in Spanish, explores the lives of young Mexican American migrant workers as they struggle to find hope for a brighter future.
112 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
109 people are currently reading
2582 people want to read
About the author
Tomás Rivera
14 books23 followersTomás Rivera (December 22, 1935 – May 16, 1984) was a Chicano author, poet, and educator. He was born in Texas to migrant farm workers, and had to work in the fields as a young boy. However, he achieved social mobility through education—gaining a degree at Southwest Texas State University (now known as Texas State University), and later a PhD at the University of Oklahoma—and came to believe strongly in the virtues of education for Mexican Americans.
As an author, Rivera is best remembered for his 1971 Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness novella ...y no se lo tragó la tierra, translated into English variously as This Migrant Earth and as ...and the Earth Did Not Devour Him. This book won the first Premio Quinto Sol award.[1]
Rivera taught in high schools throughout the Southwest USA, and later at Sam Houston State University and the University of Texas at El Paso. From 1979 until his death in 1984, he was the chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, the first Mexican American to hold such a position at the University of California.
Contents
Biography
Early years
Rivera was born on December 22, 1935, in Crystal City, Texas, to Spanish-speaking, migrant farmworkers, Florencio and Josefa Rivera. At eleven years old, Rivera was in a car accident in Bay City, Michigan. After the accident, Rivera decided to write his first story about the wreck and called it "The Accident".[2] In an interview with Juan D. Bruce-Novoa, Rivera explains: "I felt a sensation I still get when I write. I wanted to capture something I would never forget and it happened to be the sensation of having a wreck".[3] Rivera continued writing throughout high school, creative pieces as well as essays. He dreamed of being a sportswriter as an adult, inspired by what he read most, sports articles and adventure stories.[4] In the same article, Rivera explains the reality of growing up with ambitions to be a writer in a migrant worker family. He explains that "When people asked what I wanted to be, I'd tell them a writer. They were surprised or indifferent. If people don't read, what is a writer?". His grandfather was his main supporter though and provided him with supplies and encouragement.
Rivera worked in the fields alongside his family during summer vacations and often missed school because of the overlapping work-season. At the beginning of every school term, he had to catch up on missed material from the preceding year. The family labored with many other migrant workers in various parts of the Midwest: they lived and worked in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota.[5] Rivera worked as a field labourer until 1956; at this point he was enrolled in junior college and the school would not permit him to miss class.[2] This signified the end of his migrant working days and the beginning of a new life.
The first-hand experience Rivera had from growing up as a migrant worker provided him with writing material for his literary works. His novel ...y no se lo tragó la tierra is semi-autobiographical and is based around the migratory life of a young boy. As Rivera grew up in the late 20th century, he discovered some of the difficulties Chicanos faced as lower-class Mexican descendants. While trying to get published, Rivera encountered some racism; this was mainly because his writings were in Spanish, thus restricting his audience.[6] The unjust and frustrating situation faced by many Chicanos motivated Rivera. He understood that the only way to get ahead in life was through education. Rivera graduated with a degree in English from the Southwest Texas State University in 1958 and taught English and Spanish at secondary schools from 1957-65.[7] He strongly believed that post-secondary education was the only way Chicanos could evolve from migrant work. He worked in public schools until he could further his education at the University of Oklahoma, where he graduated with a PhD in Romance Languages and Literature in 1969.[7]
As an author, Rivera is best remembered for his 1971 Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness novella ...y no se lo tragó la tierra, translated into English variously as This Migrant Earth and as ...and the Earth Did Not Devour Him. This book won the first Premio Quinto Sol award.[1]
Rivera taught in high schools throughout the Southwest USA, and later at Sam Houston State University and the University of Texas at El Paso. From 1979 until his death in 1984, he was the chancellor of the University of California, Riverside, the first Mexican American to hold such a position at the University of California.
Contents
Biography
Early years
Rivera was born on December 22, 1935, in Crystal City, Texas, to Spanish-speaking, migrant farmworkers, Florencio and Josefa Rivera. At eleven years old, Rivera was in a car accident in Bay City, Michigan. After the accident, Rivera decided to write his first story about the wreck and called it "The Accident".[2] In an interview with Juan D. Bruce-Novoa, Rivera explains: "I felt a sensation I still get when I write. I wanted to capture something I would never forget and it happened to be the sensation of having a wreck".[3] Rivera continued writing throughout high school, creative pieces as well as essays. He dreamed of being a sportswriter as an adult, inspired by what he read most, sports articles and adventure stories.[4] In the same article, Rivera explains the reality of growing up with ambitions to be a writer in a migrant worker family. He explains that "When people asked what I wanted to be, I'd tell them a writer. They were surprised or indifferent. If people don't read, what is a writer?". His grandfather was his main supporter though and provided him with supplies and encouragement.
Rivera worked in the fields alongside his family during summer vacations and often missed school because of the overlapping work-season. At the beginning of every school term, he had to catch up on missed material from the preceding year. The family labored with many other migrant workers in various parts of the Midwest: they lived and worked in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Dakota.[5] Rivera worked as a field labourer until 1956; at this point he was enrolled in junior college and the school would not permit him to miss class.[2] This signified the end of his migrant working days and the beginning of a new life.
The first-hand experience Rivera had from growing up as a migrant worker provided him with writing material for his literary works. His novel ...y no se lo tragó la tierra is semi-autobiographical and is based around the migratory life of a young boy. As Rivera grew up in the late 20th century, he discovered some of the difficulties Chicanos faced as lower-class Mexican descendants. While trying to get published, Rivera encountered some racism; this was mainly because his writings were in Spanish, thus restricting his audience.[6] The unjust and frustrating situation faced by many Chicanos motivated Rivera. He understood that the only way to get ahead in life was through education. Rivera graduated with a degree in English from the Southwest Texas State University in 1958 and taught English and Spanish at secondary schools from 1957-65.[7] He strongly believed that post-secondary education was the only way Chicanos could evolve from migrant work. He worked in public schools until he could further his education at the University of Oklahoma, where he graduated with a PhD in Romance Languages and Literature in 1969.[7]
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February 9, 2017I don't read the horror genre. I guess some people get adrenaline spikes or delicious thrills reading about zombies, or preternaturally clever serial killers or suchlike; when I can bear to, I read novels like this fine translation of Rivera's brilliant work, which scour my soul with horror. Here is a powerful, unrelenting, extraordinarily vivid explication of the misery and grim, distorting effects of culturally sanctioned poverty. And, as such, it's an indictment of the culture that can permit human beings to be forced to live this way.
The structure is a frame tale. The frame opens with "The Lost Year," establishing that the protagonist, who has been mentally lost for an unstated time, has recovered memory of a specific year in his life. "Under the House" closes the frame. Between these frames the story is related in a series of vignettes.
Time, setting, and POV are elusive--liminal--just as are the precarious lives of the people described. We pick up from clues--such as references to the Korean War--that the time of the lost year is circa 1950, though the frame could be contemporary. The settings appear to vary, for the tale concerns the family and community of Hispanic migrant workers who follow the harvest seasons in various states; cities are seldom mentioned, for the families live either on the edges of tiny towns, or else in encampments on ranches.
Crops ripen when weather is hot, so the characters move about in an eternal hell of summer weather, mostly working for unscrupulous bosses. POV is sometimes first person, mostly tight third as the protagonist overhears conversation, but once in a while another POV breaks in, shedding brief illumination on the character of the protagonist by inference, such as the tiny vignette called "The teacher was surprised..."
This lack of identity of the central characters is liminal as well. The reader is denied the comfort of standard narrative form, or a clear linear connection between chapters of roughly equal length. The brevity of the novel, the collection of vignettes emphasize liminal lives as well as underscoring the main character's mental fragility.
Even reality is liminal. At the very end, during the episode entitled "Under the House" in the long italicized section we 'hear' all the voices of the protagonist's family and friends clamoring, their stories run together with the immediate consequences. The protagonist, we discover, is not a boy, but a man ("Mami! Mami! There's a man under the house!", and later the mother says, "First the mother and now him. He must be losing track of the years." ). Some of his innate good nature remains; as he remembers people, he wants to embrace them, and he hopes that maybe he can recover another year.
Who exactly is this point-of-view character? We never learn his name, and his family members are briefly referred to. This namelessness underscores the splintering mental state of the character. The reader observes how the traumatic events of this single year affect the young boy: a bully causing him to be thrown out of school, and therefore out of hope of a future; the three weeks with the murderous Don Laito and Dona Bone and their filthy, stuffy house and spoiled food; the inadvertent encounter with adult sex just before his First Communion; the burning to death of other children.
We get a hint that his mother is not stable; she suffers from agoraphobia. But there is no doctor to help them, they're too poor. The possibility of getting medical help doesn't even occur to them, either for these problems, or for the sunstroke that Papa suffers from the ferocious heat while crop picking. These people don't even have the benefit of an educated priest, and so they cling to the superstitious outer forms of Roman Catholic religion, and thus are denied the possible comfort of real faith. The mother prays constantly and goes to charlatan psychics; the boy tries to raise the devil, and on finding no devil, is struck by the terror of meaninglessness, with no one to guide him.
"The first time he felt hate and anger was when he saw his mother crying for his uncle and his aunt." This is how the vignette "And the Earth did not Devour Him" begins. Its position is roughly halfway through the book. Until now, despite the horrendous circumstances, we've gained a clear portrait of a basically likable, good little boy, who loves his family, wants to go to school, works hard, and knows the difference between right and wrong. Now, after the outer horrors, we get the beginning of emotional horror: how the cruelty of hopeless poverty begins to distort people. Not bad people, but good people.
In this nameless, faceless little boy we see all children of first and second grade, their faces round and smiling with hope, with faith in their safety, with belief in a world that makes sense: if you're good, good things will happen to you. But children cannot make their impulses to kind and compassionate
behavior into habit if they come from an unsafe environment, and it is clear from the beginning that this unnamed little boy--who could represent every little boy caught in the vicious exploitation of migrant workers--is not safe. Not at home, for despite his parents' love they must work unending hours, and there's always disease lurking about. Not in the outer world, for he can't even get a haircut. Not at school, for even if all children are supposedly offered an education, bigoted teachers and administrators permit all the stinging social slaps by which those in power drive away those without: the forced lice check and humiliating physical exam; bullies are permitted to harass for minority children, or bigoted teachers and administration Not even in his own community, as Don Laito and Dona Bone prove.
And even when his safety is not threatened, the protagonist has to watch as good people are struck down by disease; a boy is shot by a boss while trying to get a drink, and nothing happens to the man; a nasty couple murder another man, and get away with it. They are preying on their own people, but no one is capable of doing anything about it. So, too, do the picture framers prey on the poor, only in this one instance Don Mateo does get brief restitution, if only for his own family.
Symbolically the boy is stripped of his identity, his name, his being. No comfort in a harsh world, and ignorance prevents him from getting any comfort even from the spiritual guides ostensibly watching over the Hispanic community. This boy represents every boy who is born into this grim situation.
The true horror is the ignorance and waste of this kind of poverty. We get glimpses of the boy's potential: his clear observations, his compassion, his wish to do right by his family. But by the end of the book, he's unable to do anything, even brush off the fleas that bite him as he lies under the house
thinking. Those fleas represent all the stings of a harsh, indifferent world; the flea does not know, or care, about its host any more than the world knows, or cares, about this boy, outside of one furtive friendship ("Under the House": "You know, you can't come home with me any more...") or an old lady such as Dona Cuquita ("Under the House": ""You're smarter than an eagle and more watchful than the moon.") and the brief interest of that teacher when he donates a button from his only shirt, to contribute to a school poster.
The loss of this boy's potential is a loss suffered by the world. We sense it all along. How? I kept noticing brief, strongly vivid and lyrical lines, but they were deliberately kept brief, almost furtive. Lines like "That day started out cloudy and he could feel the morning coolness brushing his eyelashes as he and his brothers and sisters began the day's labor." ( "...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him") Brushing his eyelashes! What an evocative image! A few lines later, again: "During the morning, at least for the first few hours, they endured the heat but by ten-thirty the sun had suddenly cleared the skies and pressed down against the world." 'Pressed down against the world.' You don't just see that shimmering heat, you feel it, taste it, smell it, even hear it.
The episode "The Night Before Christmas", in which the mother tries to make it to a store to buy presents, but succumbs to her agoraphobia, is full of horrorific but poetically evocative imagery: "She wanted to turn back but she was caught in the flow of the crowd which shoved her onward toward downtown and the sound kept ringing louder and louder in her ears." And again: "She even started hearing voices coming from the merchandise."
"She only saw people moving about--their legs, their arms, their mouths, their eyes." And, "Then she lost consciousness of what was happening around her, only feeling herself adrift in a sea of people, their arms brushing against her like waves."
And there is Dona Cuquita's lovely line near the end: "You're smarter than the eagle and more watchful than the moon."
Rivera keeps his poetry strictly leashed, only permitting it to flash out in service of quite horrible moments: the heat, the mother's terror, the warped couple, the burning house. But as we read on, there's this sense that the other shoe is going to drop, that the innate promise of poetry is going to transcend the material.
And when it comes, it is right before the end. Just before the "Under the House" episode, the reader is granted the benison of that glimpse. Bartolo, the poet, briefly shows up: "I recall that one time he told the people to read the poems out loud because the spoken word was the seed of love in the darkness."
Then it's gone, and so is Bartolo! He's appeared, sold the poor workers his poems, and then he vanishes behind the crowd of voices in our protagonist's head. And here is where Rivera makes his point the strongest. From our unnamed boy, driven to insanity, to this unknown poet, an entire community has been stripped of its potential--and who is the loser? The world that permits this to happen. Wouldn't we love to get more glimpses of Bartolo's insights? We're not going to. He hasn't the education, or the right racial background, or even the free time, to hone that gift and surpass all these imposed barriers and step into the mainstream world with his poetry. And so that wonderful voice speaks only to his community, and that briefly, and then is lost.
The reader is left with the protagonist waving in a friendly manner to an invisible friend atop another palm tree, and with the conviction that grinding poverty and unending labor, unfair treatment and bigotry do not just destroy the occasional small boy, but they destroy the potential of a people--and the world is the poorer for the loss.
And that is real horror.
The structure is a frame tale. The frame opens with "The Lost Year," establishing that the protagonist, who has been mentally lost for an unstated time, has recovered memory of a specific year in his life. "Under the House" closes the frame. Between these frames the story is related in a series of vignettes.
Time, setting, and POV are elusive--liminal--just as are the precarious lives of the people described. We pick up from clues--such as references to the Korean War--that the time of the lost year is circa 1950, though the frame could be contemporary. The settings appear to vary, for the tale concerns the family and community of Hispanic migrant workers who follow the harvest seasons in various states; cities are seldom mentioned, for the families live either on the edges of tiny towns, or else in encampments on ranches.
Crops ripen when weather is hot, so the characters move about in an eternal hell of summer weather, mostly working for unscrupulous bosses. POV is sometimes first person, mostly tight third as the protagonist overhears conversation, but once in a while another POV breaks in, shedding brief illumination on the character of the protagonist by inference, such as the tiny vignette called "The teacher was surprised..."
This lack of identity of the central characters is liminal as well. The reader is denied the comfort of standard narrative form, or a clear linear connection between chapters of roughly equal length. The brevity of the novel, the collection of vignettes emphasize liminal lives as well as underscoring the main character's mental fragility.
Even reality is liminal. At the very end, during the episode entitled "Under the House" in the long italicized section we 'hear' all the voices of the protagonist's family and friends clamoring, their stories run together with the immediate consequences. The protagonist, we discover, is not a boy, but a man ("Mami! Mami! There's a man under the house!", and later the mother says, "First the mother and now him. He must be losing track of the years." ). Some of his innate good nature remains; as he remembers people, he wants to embrace them, and he hopes that maybe he can recover another year.
Who exactly is this point-of-view character? We never learn his name, and his family members are briefly referred to. This namelessness underscores the splintering mental state of the character. The reader observes how the traumatic events of this single year affect the young boy: a bully causing him to be thrown out of school, and therefore out of hope of a future; the three weeks with the murderous Don Laito and Dona Bone and their filthy, stuffy house and spoiled food; the inadvertent encounter with adult sex just before his First Communion; the burning to death of other children.
We get a hint that his mother is not stable; she suffers from agoraphobia. But there is no doctor to help them, they're too poor. The possibility of getting medical help doesn't even occur to them, either for these problems, or for the sunstroke that Papa suffers from the ferocious heat while crop picking. These people don't even have the benefit of an educated priest, and so they cling to the superstitious outer forms of Roman Catholic religion, and thus are denied the possible comfort of real faith. The mother prays constantly and goes to charlatan psychics; the boy tries to raise the devil, and on finding no devil, is struck by the terror of meaninglessness, with no one to guide him.
"The first time he felt hate and anger was when he saw his mother crying for his uncle and his aunt." This is how the vignette "And the Earth did not Devour Him" begins. Its position is roughly halfway through the book. Until now, despite the horrendous circumstances, we've gained a clear portrait of a basically likable, good little boy, who loves his family, wants to go to school, works hard, and knows the difference between right and wrong. Now, after the outer horrors, we get the beginning of emotional horror: how the cruelty of hopeless poverty begins to distort people. Not bad people, but good people.
In this nameless, faceless little boy we see all children of first and second grade, their faces round and smiling with hope, with faith in their safety, with belief in a world that makes sense: if you're good, good things will happen to you. But children cannot make their impulses to kind and compassionate
behavior into habit if they come from an unsafe environment, and it is clear from the beginning that this unnamed little boy--who could represent every little boy caught in the vicious exploitation of migrant workers--is not safe. Not at home, for despite his parents' love they must work unending hours, and there's always disease lurking about. Not in the outer world, for he can't even get a haircut. Not at school, for even if all children are supposedly offered an education, bigoted teachers and administrators permit all the stinging social slaps by which those in power drive away those without: the forced lice check and humiliating physical exam; bullies are permitted to harass for minority children, or bigoted teachers and administration Not even in his own community, as Don Laito and Dona Bone prove.
And even when his safety is not threatened, the protagonist has to watch as good people are struck down by disease; a boy is shot by a boss while trying to get a drink, and nothing happens to the man; a nasty couple murder another man, and get away with it. They are preying on their own people, but no one is capable of doing anything about it. So, too, do the picture framers prey on the poor, only in this one instance Don Mateo does get brief restitution, if only for his own family.
Symbolically the boy is stripped of his identity, his name, his being. No comfort in a harsh world, and ignorance prevents him from getting any comfort even from the spiritual guides ostensibly watching over the Hispanic community. This boy represents every boy who is born into this grim situation.
The true horror is the ignorance and waste of this kind of poverty. We get glimpses of the boy's potential: his clear observations, his compassion, his wish to do right by his family. But by the end of the book, he's unable to do anything, even brush off the fleas that bite him as he lies under the house
thinking. Those fleas represent all the stings of a harsh, indifferent world; the flea does not know, or care, about its host any more than the world knows, or cares, about this boy, outside of one furtive friendship ("Under the House": "You know, you can't come home with me any more...") or an old lady such as Dona Cuquita ("Under the House": ""You're smarter than an eagle and more watchful than the moon.") and the brief interest of that teacher when he donates a button from his only shirt, to contribute to a school poster.
The loss of this boy's potential is a loss suffered by the world. We sense it all along. How? I kept noticing brief, strongly vivid and lyrical lines, but they were deliberately kept brief, almost furtive. Lines like "That day started out cloudy and he could feel the morning coolness brushing his eyelashes as he and his brothers and sisters began the day's labor." ( "...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him") Brushing his eyelashes! What an evocative image! A few lines later, again: "During the morning, at least for the first few hours, they endured the heat but by ten-thirty the sun had suddenly cleared the skies and pressed down against the world." 'Pressed down against the world.' You don't just see that shimmering heat, you feel it, taste it, smell it, even hear it.
The episode "The Night Before Christmas", in which the mother tries to make it to a store to buy presents, but succumbs to her agoraphobia, is full of horrorific but poetically evocative imagery: "She wanted to turn back but she was caught in the flow of the crowd which shoved her onward toward downtown and the sound kept ringing louder and louder in her ears." And again: "She even started hearing voices coming from the merchandise."
"She only saw people moving about--their legs, their arms, their mouths, their eyes." And, "Then she lost consciousness of what was happening around her, only feeling herself adrift in a sea of people, their arms brushing against her like waves."
And there is Dona Cuquita's lovely line near the end: "You're smarter than the eagle and more watchful than the moon."
Rivera keeps his poetry strictly leashed, only permitting it to flash out in service of quite horrible moments: the heat, the mother's terror, the warped couple, the burning house. But as we read on, there's this sense that the other shoe is going to drop, that the innate promise of poetry is going to transcend the material.
And when it comes, it is right before the end. Just before the "Under the House" episode, the reader is granted the benison of that glimpse. Bartolo, the poet, briefly shows up: "I recall that one time he told the people to read the poems out loud because the spoken word was the seed of love in the darkness."
Then it's gone, and so is Bartolo! He's appeared, sold the poor workers his poems, and then he vanishes behind the crowd of voices in our protagonist's head. And here is where Rivera makes his point the strongest. From our unnamed boy, driven to insanity, to this unknown poet, an entire community has been stripped of its potential--and who is the loser? The world that permits this to happen. Wouldn't we love to get more glimpses of Bartolo's insights? We're not going to. He hasn't the education, or the right racial background, or even the free time, to hone that gift and surpass all these imposed barriers and step into the mainstream world with his poetry. And so that wonderful voice speaks only to his community, and that briefly, and then is lost.
The reader is left with the protagonist waving in a friendly manner to an invisible friend atop another palm tree, and with the conviction that grinding poverty and unending labor, unfair treatment and bigotry do not just destroy the occasional small boy, but they destroy the potential of a people--and the world is the poorer for the loss.
And that is real horror.
July 21, 2024
5 stars
This has been on my TBR for a long time. I liked some parts more than others, but so much of it struck a chord in me. I saw my father in so many of these stories, specifically the ones featuring the migrant workers. My dad grew up in the potato fields and the corn fields and the onion fields. He has stories of what it was like, singing for his supper when young.He will tell you that harvesting potatoes is some of the most back breaking work you can do and that his least favorite was onions because you just can't wash off the smell. How he lost a part of his finger when he was 2 or 3 when in the fields and they had to take most of it later when infection set in. This book has given me even more of an insight to his early years and although parts make me so angry, it also makes me so proud.
This has been on my TBR for a long time. I liked some parts more than others, but so much of it struck a chord in me. I saw my father in so many of these stories, specifically the ones featuring the migrant workers. My dad grew up in the potato fields and the corn fields and the onion fields. He has stories of what it was like, singing for his supper when young.He will tell you that harvesting potatoes is some of the most back breaking work you can do and that his least favorite was onions because you just can't wash off the smell. How he lost a part of his finger when he was 2 or 3 when in the fields and they had to take most of it later when infection set in. This book has given me even more of an insight to his early years and although parts make me so angry, it also makes me so proud.
December 27, 2007
I found myself flipping through it on Christmas Eve and came across a story called The Night Before Christmas, so of course, I had to read it. The story was beautiful and heart-wrenching, mimicking real life for many poor immigrant families.
I borrowed this one from a friend in an effort to save a few bucks on school books, but the more I read, the more I think I'm going to go ahead and buy my own copy. This is one I'll want to pick up long after this class is over.
I borrowed this one from a friend in an effort to save a few bucks on school books, but the more I read, the more I think I'm going to go ahead and buy my own copy. This is one I'll want to pick up long after this class is over.
July 5, 2013
A detailed portrait of a Latino community is what Rivera managed to illustrate in his book. A community of the victims. A literature of the victims. Victims who, despite all adversities, never stop hoping.
June 22, 2022
''Luego cuando llegó a la casa se fue al árbol que estaba en el solar. Se subió. En el horizonte encontró una palma y se imaginó que ahí estaba alguien trepado viéndolo a él. Y hasta levantó el brazo y lo movió para atrás y para adelante para que viera que él sabía que estaba allí''.
4.5
4.5
June 26, 2023
I finished reading my first book in Spanish!
February 10, 2019
El texto tiene una estructura interesante que parecieran ser un compendio de cuentos. En la clase hemos comentado que hay novelas que tienen una estructura similar a esta, así que el texto es novela. Hay un punto en donde las historias se empiezan a conectar para luego culminar en un final que ata cabos. Escritos desde la memoria de la voz narrativa, estos episodios presentan una aproximación al mexicano en espacios americanos, los conflictos externos e internos que viven a través de una búsqueda de trabajo y bienestar; junto con la búsqueda interior del “¿quién soy?”, ante la convergencia de dos culturas.
Los siguientes puntos son breves notas que tomé de cada cuento. Y más que una reseña del cuento, intenté rescatar la esencia del cuento para poder participar en clase.
El año perdido- Niño que se bebía el agua de los espíritus. Ruptura de tradiciones, la mexicana y la forma en la que la nueva generación pone en duda estas creencias.
Los niños no se aguantaron- El niño que recibe un balazo por andar tomando agua en el estanque, señor se queda loco y sin dinero.
Un rezo- Hijo que se va a estados unidos Utah, pero lo confunden con un lugar cerca de Japón. Esta historia se ve vinculada al 14 y 12.
Es que duele- Operador de teléfono. El dolor de las caídas y las expectativas, preocupaciones. El niño que se peleó y que posiblemente fue expulsado.
La mano en la bolsa- Don Laíto y doña Bone (qué nacionalidad son?), cómo hacían la comida, robaban y cómo mataron al mojadito y cómo el niño lo enterró.
La noche estaba plateada-
“— Pero si no hay diablo tampoco hay … No, más vale no decirlo. A lo mejor me cae un castigo. Pero, no hay diablo”.
no se volvían locos porque se les aparecía sino al contrario, porque no se les aparecía. “Se le apareció el diablo en una representación del pecado” (?). Niño que invoca al diablo en un campo, tiene recuerdos de cuando lo veía en máscaras y todo, pero no se le aparece.
… y no se lo tragó la tierra- Escapularios y velas al papá que tiene tuberculosis al igual que su tío y tía que murieron. Cree que no hay Dios pero que mejor no hay que decirlo por si las dudas, y así evitar que empeore. Trabajar más lento para que no se asolean. Rechazo a las creencias pero un seguimiento que permanece. Niño estúpido por desear tener 30 sólo para ver qué sucedería con su vida.
Primera comunión- Cuadro del infierno en la cabecera y los fantasmas tapizado en su cuarto. Si no confiesas todos tus pecados y comulgas, es pecado. El botón que arrancó de su camisa para dárselo a la maestra. Lujura.
Los quemaditos- ¿qué onda con el final? Raul, Juan y María. El mayor les puso los guantes y les puso alcohol en el pecho. Una boda al final. Paralelismo entre quemarse y el matrimonio junto a los pleitos??
La noche que se apagaron las luces- Ramón, Juanita y Ramiro. Ramón se achicharro porque Juanita ya no quería nada. Se habían prometido esperarse pero Juanita se consiguió a un de San Antonio, Texas. Las luces se fueron luego de que encontrar a Ramón abrazado a un transformador.
La noche buena- La mamá que sale a la ciudad para comprarle reglaos a sus hijos, pero que es confundida como ladrona debida a su nerviosismo. Las discusiones de la pareja en decidir si les traían juguetes o no.
El retrato- Un estafador llega a la comunidad prometiendo un retoque “fino” a las fotografías de la gente. El costo no es muy económico pero llega a convencer a mucha gente. La historia gira entorno a una mamá que tiene su hijo en la guerra y que solamente tenía una fotografía de su hijo. La historia muestra que a pesar de que el papá se vengó y encontró al señora para que le hiciera el trabajo fotográfico, al final comenta que en realidad no recuerda cómo era su hijo.
Esto denota una especie de idolatrismo casi como si su hijo fuera un nuevo santo, junto a la imagen de la virgen de Guadalupe.
Cuando lleguemos- — Pinche vida, pinche vida, pinche vida, pinche vida, por pendejos, por pendejos, por pendejos. Somos una bola de pendejos. Chingue a su madre toda la pinche vida.
Cuando lleguemos, cuando lleguemos, ya, la mera verdad estoy cansado de llegar. Es la misma cosa llegar que partir porque apenas llegamos y … la mera verdad estoy cansado de llegar. Mejor debería decir, cuando no lleguemos porque esa es la mera verdad. Nunca llegamos.]
“La gente se volvía gente”.....
“La voz era la semilla del amor en la oscuridad”... el vendedor de poemas, Bartolo. Anhelos que van de pueblo en pueblo según las temporadas y las cosechas.
Debajo de la casa-
Itálicas cuando habla la voz narrativa del niño que se pone debajo de la casa. 1862-Tropas de Napoleón derrotados por fuerzas mexicanas.
“esconderme para poder comprender muchas cosas”
“no había perdido nada. Había encontrado. Encontrar y reencontrar y juntar”
Los siguientes puntos son breves notas que tomé de cada cuento. Y más que una reseña del cuento, intenté rescatar la esencia del cuento para poder participar en clase.
El año perdido- Niño que se bebía el agua de los espíritus. Ruptura de tradiciones, la mexicana y la forma en la que la nueva generación pone en duda estas creencias.
Los niños no se aguantaron- El niño que recibe un balazo por andar tomando agua en el estanque, señor se queda loco y sin dinero.
Un rezo- Hijo que se va a estados unidos Utah, pero lo confunden con un lugar cerca de Japón. Esta historia se ve vinculada al 14 y 12.
Es que duele- Operador de teléfono. El dolor de las caídas y las expectativas, preocupaciones. El niño que se peleó y que posiblemente fue expulsado.
La mano en la bolsa- Don Laíto y doña Bone (qué nacionalidad son?), cómo hacían la comida, robaban y cómo mataron al mojadito y cómo el niño lo enterró.
La noche estaba plateada-
“— Pero si no hay diablo tampoco hay … No, más vale no decirlo. A lo mejor me cae un castigo. Pero, no hay diablo”.
no se volvían locos porque se les aparecía sino al contrario, porque no se les aparecía. “Se le apareció el diablo en una representación del pecado” (?). Niño que invoca al diablo en un campo, tiene recuerdos de cuando lo veía en máscaras y todo, pero no se le aparece.
… y no se lo tragó la tierra- Escapularios y velas al papá que tiene tuberculosis al igual que su tío y tía que murieron. Cree que no hay Dios pero que mejor no hay que decirlo por si las dudas, y así evitar que empeore. Trabajar más lento para que no se asolean. Rechazo a las creencias pero un seguimiento que permanece. Niño estúpido por desear tener 30 sólo para ver qué sucedería con su vida.
Primera comunión- Cuadro del infierno en la cabecera y los fantasmas tapizado en su cuarto. Si no confiesas todos tus pecados y comulgas, es pecado. El botón que arrancó de su camisa para dárselo a la maestra. Lujura.
Los quemaditos- ¿qué onda con el final? Raul, Juan y María. El mayor les puso los guantes y les puso alcohol en el pecho. Una boda al final. Paralelismo entre quemarse y el matrimonio junto a los pleitos??
La noche que se apagaron las luces- Ramón, Juanita y Ramiro. Ramón se achicharro porque Juanita ya no quería nada. Se habían prometido esperarse pero Juanita se consiguió a un de San Antonio, Texas. Las luces se fueron luego de que encontrar a Ramón abrazado a un transformador.
La noche buena- La mamá que sale a la ciudad para comprarle reglaos a sus hijos, pero que es confundida como ladrona debida a su nerviosismo. Las discusiones de la pareja en decidir si les traían juguetes o no.
El retrato- Un estafador llega a la comunidad prometiendo un retoque “fino” a las fotografías de la gente. El costo no es muy económico pero llega a convencer a mucha gente. La historia gira entorno a una mamá que tiene su hijo en la guerra y que solamente tenía una fotografía de su hijo. La historia muestra que a pesar de que el papá se vengó y encontró al señora para que le hiciera el trabajo fotográfico, al final comenta que en realidad no recuerda cómo era su hijo.
Esto denota una especie de idolatrismo casi como si su hijo fuera un nuevo santo, junto a la imagen de la virgen de Guadalupe.
Cuando lleguemos- — Pinche vida, pinche vida, pinche vida, pinche vida, por pendejos, por pendejos, por pendejos. Somos una bola de pendejos. Chingue a su madre toda la pinche vida.
Cuando lleguemos, cuando lleguemos, ya, la mera verdad estoy cansado de llegar. Es la misma cosa llegar que partir porque apenas llegamos y … la mera verdad estoy cansado de llegar. Mejor debería decir, cuando no lleguemos porque esa es la mera verdad. Nunca llegamos.]
“La gente se volvía gente”.....
“La voz era la semilla del amor en la oscuridad”... el vendedor de poemas, Bartolo. Anhelos que van de pueblo en pueblo según las temporadas y las cosechas.
Debajo de la casa-
Itálicas cuando habla la voz narrativa del niño que se pone debajo de la casa. 1862-Tropas de Napoleón derrotados por fuerzas mexicanas.
“esconderme para poder comprender muchas cosas”
“no había perdido nada. Había encontrado. Encontrar y reencontrar y juntar”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 21, 2024
Read for class.
April 23, 2011
What at first seemed like a collection of short-stories or vignettes ended up being the rambling memories of a young boy. Disjointed and confusing, they reflect the state of mind of the character by the end of the novel. Each also reveals a different aspect of the life of a migrant worker during the 1940's and 1950's in America.
Familial and societal bonds are stretched thin and broken due to the constant need to travel. Children and parents are challenged to balance the need for education for a better life in the future versus the need for money to survive in the present. Those that do go to school must contend with peers who mock and teachers who stereotype & just don't care. I think the fragmented nature of the novel really reflects how a child might experience and remember growing up in this life.
The interesting thing about the novel was the undercurrent of challenging the authority of religion throughout. The narrator(s) (there seem to be multiple during the course of the book) question the existence of God numerous times, and there is a short paragraph where a priest is mocked. Since Mexican society is so deeply religious, I can see why a boy would rebel against the church in a world where he is marginalized by society and brutalized by the work he must do.
Familial and societal bonds are stretched thin and broken due to the constant need to travel. Children and parents are challenged to balance the need for education for a better life in the future versus the need for money to survive in the present. Those that do go to school must contend with peers who mock and teachers who stereotype & just don't care. I think the fragmented nature of the novel really reflects how a child might experience and remember growing up in this life.
The interesting thing about the novel was the undercurrent of challenging the authority of religion throughout. The narrator(s) (there seem to be multiple during the course of the book) question the existence of God numerous times, and there is a short paragraph where a priest is mocked. Since Mexican society is so deeply religious, I can see why a boy would rebel against the church in a world where he is marginalized by society and brutalized by the work he must do.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 3, 2012
"...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him" is an incomparable mix of voices and experiences that portray the life of the Mexican-American in the Southwestern United States during the 40s and 50s. With stream-of-consciousness, the author reveals the thoughts that consume and entertain the characters in a world where they seek to find their place. From a child who is expelled from school, to another who is the witness of a murder; from a mother who is afraid of going to the center to purchase gifts for her children, to another who returns home from the fields to save their children caught in a fire, the comparisons and the contrasts come together to reveal the different aspects, diversity, but at the same time the unity of this distinct ethnic group. In this novella, we see the life of the fields translate into an identity and an implicit solidarity for those who searched for a better life.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 9, 2019
This was completely and absolutely my kind of thing. ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him features interconnected short stories that are loosely based on Rivera's experience. This was done so well and with so much care and thoughtfulness. I really enjoyed the setup of this book, it was half in Spanish and half in English. The stories varied back and forth between being a couple of pages to a paragraph. And even in just the paragraph there was so much! While the stories depicted would get pretty gruesome and uncovered the despicable living conditions for migrant workers it never felt too much for me. Even while describing death and destruction it was more about how the people were dealing with it rather than just glorifying the violence. I honestly already want to read it again and I even forced my boyfriend into listening to me read different sections to him.
September 20, 2008
The book deals with identity issues in a small California town. The main character is pulled toward his traditionalist Mexican culture by his family, drawn to the American-lifestyle as it spreads into the newly formed American West, and tied to a religious lifestyle by his fear of angering God. Throughout all of this, the protagonist has to come to terms with the fact that he belongs to none of these social circles.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 25, 2016
Reading this was like having an extremely unpleasant fever dream.
March 21, 2017
The very first page was amazing, but unfortunately the rest of the novel didn't really follow suit. That said, it was still a really good story, with moving characters and interesting writing.
September 28, 2022
Jarring realism of migrant farm workers in the 50’s. Sort of half novella, half short story collection, it follows a Chicano community through the eyes of a boy. The vignettes are brutal, they’re structured like a Flannery O’Connor or J.D. Salinger short story - and left me with a shocked feeling I associate with their stories. Rivera intertwines other characters perspectives, stream of consciousness, and dialogue to form a really unique piece of writing. A great reading for my class!
September 2, 2022
this was compelling and written in a unique style (short stories and vignettes with a difficult to parse out cohesion).
October 27, 2022
v much liked this one + illuminating class discussion #thankujackgriffiths
December 12, 2023
I hope to read this in the original Spanish version… I loved it but ik it would make it so much more better if I hadn’t read this version!!!
April 19, 2024
reading some parts was like my heart having individual muscle fibers plucked from it (but some also felt like a boy learning other people have feelings too!!)
May 8, 2024
Stories that are very real to the struggles of many immigrant families. I cried multiple times reading this book. It’s one I’ll keep close to my heart.
January 30, 2025
un libro para mi clase de literatura chicana. me gustó mucho la estructura de fragmentación y la perspectiva de la cultura de los trabajadores del campesino y sus familias. los cuentos sobre religión fueron muy interesantes también.
July 16, 2024
A beautifully written book on the struggles of northern Mexicans in the 40-50s.
There should be a new movie on it cus the original is poo poo caca!
There should be a new movie on it cus the original is poo poo caca!
March 6, 2025
The thoughts of a young migrant boy…. So powerful!
September 18, 2024
For a class but it counts. A real and good and confusing and eye-opening introduction to Latinx/Latine literatures
October 16, 2024
not much has changed
October 20, 2019
Amazing short novel from about 1970. Young Texas boy of hispanic origin views the world of exploitation and deprivation of the migrant workers, so often children like himself. As I continue my personal growth to read novels and biographies to help me better understand the Hispanic journey, this is one to share and recommend to all my friends.
May 20, 2024
4.5!! this is my sign to get on the latino literature grind. i love mexicans and catholicism is traumatizing and we are profoundly special as people. AMEN!
“Arriving and leaving, its the same thing because we no sooner arrive and … the real truth of the matter … I’m tired of arriving. I should really say when we don’t arrive because that’s the real truth. We never arrive. When we arrive, when we arrive…”
“Arriving and leaving, its the same thing because we no sooner arrive and … the real truth of the matter … I’m tired of arriving. I should really say when we don’t arrive because that’s the real truth. We never arrive. When we arrive, when we arrive…”
Read
September 16, 2019by Cristina Rios
This is a reprint of a famous work of Chicano literature by Tomás Rivera. The author won the “Quinto Sol” literary prize in 1970 for the manuscript that became this short fictional novel. Originally written in Spanish and translated into English by Evangelina Vigil-Piñon, the book has been adapted into a film, which also has received several awards. This edition is bi-lingual. The English translation is accurate and praiseworthy; however, upon reading the novel again, many years after I had first encountered it, I found the Spanish original version more touching than the translated version in English. The colloquial Chicano Spanish gives authenticity to the voices of the characters.
For more than forty-five years, this novel has been considered fundamental to the field of Chicano literature and especially valuable for the understanding of the uniqueness of the Chicano identity. There is an extensive body of scholarly work written about this short work. Throughout the years, Rivera’s novel has been analyzed from the perspectives of different disciplines; the range of themes found in the story have permitted the work to be studied not only from the literary point of view, but from historical, sociological, psychological, political, and philosophical angles.
The daily lives of migrant farmworkers are portrayed with realism and make evident the personal knowledge that the author had of the experiences of Chicano farmworkers. Rivera was born in south Texas to a family who followed the seasonal crops from Texas all the way to the northern states of the country. The many struggles and hardships experienced by the migrant community are seen through the reflections of a boy, questioning the fate of his family and the social structures such as school, church, and government that keep them in poverty, despite their hard work ethics.
Highly recommended for university libraries; essential reading for anyone interested in Chicano or Mexican-American literature.
This is a reprint of a famous work of Chicano literature by Tomás Rivera. The author won the “Quinto Sol” literary prize in 1970 for the manuscript that became this short fictional novel. Originally written in Spanish and translated into English by Evangelina Vigil-Piñon, the book has been adapted into a film, which also has received several awards. This edition is bi-lingual. The English translation is accurate and praiseworthy; however, upon reading the novel again, many years after I had first encountered it, I found the Spanish original version more touching than the translated version in English. The colloquial Chicano Spanish gives authenticity to the voices of the characters.
For more than forty-five years, this novel has been considered fundamental to the field of Chicano literature and especially valuable for the understanding of the uniqueness of the Chicano identity. There is an extensive body of scholarly work written about this short work. Throughout the years, Rivera’s novel has been analyzed from the perspectives of different disciplines; the range of themes found in the story have permitted the work to be studied not only from the literary point of view, but from historical, sociological, psychological, political, and philosophical angles.
The daily lives of migrant farmworkers are portrayed with realism and make evident the personal knowledge that the author had of the experiences of Chicano farmworkers. Rivera was born in south Texas to a family who followed the seasonal crops from Texas all the way to the northern states of the country. The many struggles and hardships experienced by the migrant community are seen through the reflections of a boy, questioning the fate of his family and the social structures such as school, church, and government that keep them in poverty, despite their hard work ethics.
Highly recommended for university libraries; essential reading for anyone interested in Chicano or Mexican-American literature.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 231 reviews