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Of Dreams & Thorns
Of Dreams and Thorns, a novel: Based on real people and events, this is the quintessential story of every American family, and every family anywhere, that has ever been uprooted, dislocated, or transplanted. It is a story about dreams, struggles, sorrows, and triumphs. It is a story of real people finding their way in the world and of real lives ever interdependent and ever tragicomic.
But this book is not a "woe is me, immigrant, life is so unfair" kind of story. There are no victims here. Rather, it is a portrait of the character and passions on one man, his family, and his fellow life-travelers in an immigrant community. It is also a landscape, or tapestry that captures the splendors of this collection of characters that only comes from an intimacy with their various human dimensions - warts and all. You will meet Ramiro, a strong-willed, self-reliant, deeply passionate man, who is at times a dreamer, sometimes defiant, sometimes tyrannical, but always in control of the ship that carries his lovely wife, Eliza, and their seven children. Ramiro's hopes and dreams are modest and realistic, yet, as the title suggests, the book shows that a man's best plans can often go astray. Indeed, it is Ramiro's - and his family's - resilience and courage in fighting for his beliefs, that will capture your heart and imagination.
But this book is not a "woe is me, immigrant, life is so unfair" kind of story. There are no victims here. Rather, it is a portrait of the character and passions on one man, his family, and his fellow life-travelers in an immigrant community. It is also a landscape, or tapestry that captures the splendors of this collection of characters that only comes from an intimacy with their various human dimensions - warts and all. You will meet Ramiro, a strong-willed, self-reliant, deeply passionate man, who is at times a dreamer, sometimes defiant, sometimes tyrannical, but always in control of the ship that carries his lovely wife, Eliza, and their seven children. Ramiro's hopes and dreams are modest and realistic, yet, as the title suggests, the book shows that a man's best plans can often go astray. Indeed, it is Ramiro's - and his family's - resilience and courage in fighting for his beliefs, that will capture your heart and imagination.
310 pages, ebook
Published February 14, 2018
5 people want to read
About the author
J.C. Salazar
2 books5 followersWhen the author was five years old, he lived in a Mexican farm and had few toys, no television, no electricity or running water. He and his siblings told stories as they looked up at millions of stars each evening. Such a world led to a clarity of mind that stimulated his imagination. He always knew that one day he would write books.
J.C. Salazar grew up in Houston, where he still resides, the child of immigrant parents. He earned degrees in English (BA), linguistics (MS), and literature (MA) from the University of Houston and UH-Clear Lake. He also completed doctoral courses in English at UH. J.C. is a lifelong educator and community activist, who loves great stories, language, and writing. "Of Dreams & Thorns" is his debut novel, inspired by his immigrant family and community. He hopes you love reading it as much as he loved writing it.
J.C. Salazar grew up in Houston, where he still resides, the child of immigrant parents. He earned degrees in English (BA), linguistics (MS), and literature (MA) from the University of Houston and UH-Clear Lake. He also completed doctoral courses in English at UH. J.C. is a lifelong educator and community activist, who loves great stories, language, and writing. "Of Dreams & Thorns" is his debut novel, inspired by his immigrant family and community. He hopes you love reading it as much as he loved writing it.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
October 15, 2018
This is a charming American story of a Mexican immigrant family from the 1950’s to 1990’s. The head-of-house, Don Ramiro Ocañas, his wife, Doña Eliza Cervantes de Ocañas, and their eight children struggle through life’s hardships and successfully prevail.
This story is well written and genuine. I was brought into their experience.
I particularly enjoyed Ramiro’s conservative expectations of his wife and his female children – the do’s and don’ts – and Ramiro’s pride. Conflict occurs when American culture of the 1960’s sometimes conflicts with conservative Mexican propriety, and Eliza does her best to mitigate these challenges even though she comes from a weak, subservient position as wife and mother.
I particularly loved this phrase written by the author, “…Every young woman past the age of puberty slowly developed an imaginary scorecard showing where she stood socially based on four major criteria. First on the list was chastity and virginity; second, her public behavior and modesty; third, her ability to display a family garden that was green, lush, and flowering; and fourth, how well she ironed the family’s clothes.”
Ah, the old days when people lived civilly and with social decorum.
I also loved the description of a quinceañera, Esmeralda’s wedding, and Eliza’s cooking. Good, hard work and long hours, and appreciation for labor that produces results and wages. It’s the achievement and the pride of it. And physical demands that produces healthy bodies.
When Ramiro paid off a debt, there is the relief of getting this burden off his mind. It speaks to the work ethic and the trust that was understood – a debt guaranteed to be mode good.
I enjoyed a great laugh at the war between Chavela and “acts-like-a-dog”, Pancha. Then, sadness with the death of Jacobo, Ramiro’s brother, and the mournful hubbub that followed.
This book is good story-telling. I loved this by the author, “…Death was to be respected. No amount of chest beating and despairing cries was too much to show the world how well loved and respected the departed had been. …Women dressed completely in black for a minimum of a year. Afterward, truly pious women wore variations of black and white for another six months.”
Ahhh, for a nanosecond, I am with Mexican immigrants and I am in mourning and the starched collar of my long sleeved, long length, black dress, irritates my neck.
What struck me most was the structure, cultural expectations, husband roles, wife roles, and a strong sense of family and community. And the threat of Ramiro losing his dream after Jacobo’s death. When Fernando died, I was reminded of the McCoy and Hatfield family feud in rural America wondering if the story would make a similar turn. I leave it to the reader to find out.
Generally, I felt the emotion, the challenges of moving a family of eight, and achievement. This was a period in history where a family of laborers looked to their children to work and help take care of the family finances as a tightly held family should in that period of history.
I also admire the depth of the author’s observations regarding Ramiro; why Ramiro struggled the way he did. Sometimes when a person is ram-rod straight they do not adjust easily to societal change.
Good memories were made in this family. I cried at the Eulogy.
Well done!
This story is well written and genuine. I was brought into their experience.
I particularly enjoyed Ramiro’s conservative expectations of his wife and his female children – the do’s and don’ts – and Ramiro’s pride. Conflict occurs when American culture of the 1960’s sometimes conflicts with conservative Mexican propriety, and Eliza does her best to mitigate these challenges even though she comes from a weak, subservient position as wife and mother.
I particularly loved this phrase written by the author, “…Every young woman past the age of puberty slowly developed an imaginary scorecard showing where she stood socially based on four major criteria. First on the list was chastity and virginity; second, her public behavior and modesty; third, her ability to display a family garden that was green, lush, and flowering; and fourth, how well she ironed the family’s clothes.”
Ah, the old days when people lived civilly and with social decorum.
I also loved the description of a quinceañera, Esmeralda’s wedding, and Eliza’s cooking. Good, hard work and long hours, and appreciation for labor that produces results and wages. It’s the achievement and the pride of it. And physical demands that produces healthy bodies.
When Ramiro paid off a debt, there is the relief of getting this burden off his mind. It speaks to the work ethic and the trust that was understood – a debt guaranteed to be mode good.
I enjoyed a great laugh at the war between Chavela and “acts-like-a-dog”, Pancha. Then, sadness with the death of Jacobo, Ramiro’s brother, and the mournful hubbub that followed.
This book is good story-telling. I loved this by the author, “…Death was to be respected. No amount of chest beating and despairing cries was too much to show the world how well loved and respected the departed had been. …Women dressed completely in black for a minimum of a year. Afterward, truly pious women wore variations of black and white for another six months.”
Ahhh, for a nanosecond, I am with Mexican immigrants and I am in mourning and the starched collar of my long sleeved, long length, black dress, irritates my neck.
What struck me most was the structure, cultural expectations, husband roles, wife roles, and a strong sense of family and community. And the threat of Ramiro losing his dream after Jacobo’s death. When Fernando died, I was reminded of the McCoy and Hatfield family feud in rural America wondering if the story would make a similar turn. I leave it to the reader to find out.
Generally, I felt the emotion, the challenges of moving a family of eight, and achievement. This was a period in history where a family of laborers looked to their children to work and help take care of the family finances as a tightly held family should in that period of history.
I also admire the depth of the author’s observations regarding Ramiro; why Ramiro struggled the way he did. Sometimes when a person is ram-rod straight they do not adjust easily to societal change.
Good memories were made in this family. I cried at the Eulogy.
Well done!
August 16, 2018
OF DREAMS AND THORNS really wanted to be something like a Mexican immigrant version of A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. I mostly finished it out of a sense of obligation to a local author.
It’s a fairly good story with a wide cast of characters. Any Houstonian who grew up living in the barrios will feel their heart swell with the story of Ramiro and his life’s journey. It’s terribly authentic.
Sadly, it’s just not a very well-crafted narrative. Ramiro fades out of his own story, his wife Eliza starts to serve as a counterpoint but fizzles into a one-dimensional character, the Ocanas kids spring into the foreground after barely being developed for 200 pages, events like a childhood accident and even a murder seem to have no real consequences, and there’s just no real ending.
It’s the sort of book that would make a basis for a wonderful television series, but it’s otherwise a wandering yarn more noteworthy for its cultural sincerity than its story. Salazar is certainly comment as a writer. I was never bored and he occasionally had bits of absolute genius, but as a whole the book was just sort of aimless.
It’s a fairly good story with a wide cast of characters. Any Houstonian who grew up living in the barrios will feel their heart swell with the story of Ramiro and his life’s journey. It’s terribly authentic.
Sadly, it’s just not a very well-crafted narrative. Ramiro fades out of his own story, his wife Eliza starts to serve as a counterpoint but fizzles into a one-dimensional character, the Ocanas kids spring into the foreground after barely being developed for 200 pages, events like a childhood accident and even a murder seem to have no real consequences, and there’s just no real ending.
It’s the sort of book that would make a basis for a wonderful television series, but it’s otherwise a wandering yarn more noteworthy for its cultural sincerity than its story. Salazar is certainly comment as a writer. I was never bored and he occasionally had bits of absolute genius, but as a whole the book was just sort of aimless.
June 4, 2019
The title gives nothing away but it is a lovely story about one person's hopes and dreams while being a young person with a partner and family.
It continues through out the person's life and what happens to them.
J C Salazar writes in a fantastic way that it is almost, diary form. Without the dates yet chronicly going through the person's life.
I really enjoyed the story as it was set in a different time and place. Although ending at a time when I was already alive.
The descriptions were so good that I could imagine myself there.
So on that grounds I give this 4/5
Love & Peace
Xxx
It continues through out the person's life and what happens to them.
J C Salazar writes in a fantastic way that it is almost, diary form. Without the dates yet chronicly going through the person's life.
I really enjoyed the story as it was set in a different time and place. Although ending at a time when I was already alive.
The descriptions were so good that I could imagine myself there.
So on that grounds I give this 4/5
Love & Peace
Xxx
May 6, 2019
Of Dreams and ThornsOf Dreams and Thorns
During the 1950s, the United States was the strongest military power. Its economy was booming, consumer goods were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. The nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exacerbated the underlying divisions in American society.
To worsen this already complex scenario, millions of illegal immigrants continued to cross the southern border by early 1950s. The cheap latino work-force, mainly Mexican, fled their countries, entered the American territory searching for stable or even temporary jobs to overcome poverty, diseases and an enduring lack of opportunities or future.
Recently, commenting President Dwight Eisenhower (1953/1961) immigration enforcement plan, shamefully called Operation Wetback (´´as many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower era´´), the now Republican President Donald Trump said:
´´Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower (…) moved 1,5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them beyond the border, they came back. Didn´t like it. Moved´em waaaay south, they never came back. (…) We have no choice. We. Have. No. Choice.´´
The evidence and statements by Border Patrol agents in the 1950s and afterwards disagree with Mr. Trump´s analysis. Increased immigration enforcement plans did not reduce unauthorized immigration in the 1950s, legal migration did.
One of them was Operation Bracero (manual work-force) guest worker visa program, enacted ´´in 1942 under the name of Mexican Farm Labor Program.´´ During the early, more regulated, and thus restricted phase of the Bracero program, unauthorized immigrants continued to cross the border which resulted in almost two million of them living in the United States by early 1950s.
The main character of ´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´, by J. C. Salazar, the 28 year old Ramiro Ocañas, from Naranjales, Mexico, does not leave his poor, underdeveloped community illegaly in 1950. He bears a legal worker visa heading to Chicago, where lives and works his friend Nico.
J. C. Salazar permeates circa the first third of her consistent latino saga to depict Ramiro´s background: she conveys us an authentic anthropological treatise on the immigrant world, managing fine ethnocentric data collected from a needy, backwarded community, on men´s and women´s roles who live under rigid moral codes and feed their breed with a brave, proud cultural heritage. Women as fortresses, men as totems.
´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´ readers are offered a narrative that since its beginnings grows in a steady, plain crescendo to attain higher notes from the moment that Ramiro decides to leave Chicago behind, heading to his California dream: ´´It was also that he had never felt quite at ease in Chicago. The city was not really for him. (…) Perhaps it was simply a matter of his associating the city with the loneliness he felt over his family.´´
´´Ramiro looked around and for the first time saw a vivid picture of ethnic and racial division among the workers. He accepted that there were differences among the races, ethnicities, and cultures because even back home he felt uncomfortable about it and resented that his friend was turned away.´´
´´His community in Naranjales was a northern Mexico community, primarily composed of descendants of European peasant stock, with perhaps less than half being of Mestizo heritage. In his region of Mexico, there had never been more than a few scattered families of indigenous looks or manner. Folks like his family tended to look down on Indians as somehow less civilized.´´
I´d like to note at this point that J. C. Salazar consolidates her fiction mastery inscribing it definitely into the tradition of European novel, as analysed by Ian Watt in his ´´The Rise of the English Novel´´, dedicated to the prose of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. The novel as a form of literature that reflects more plainly the birth of a midle class in urban centers, individualism and innovation as foundations of Modernity.
One of her paragraphs asserts it: ´´Ramiros´s limited education and exposure to the world prevented him from knowing about the history of slavery or Jim Crow in America. He also lacked understanding of the Chicago struggles over the century since the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty was signed, giving the United States almost half of Mexico in what was now the western United States and Texas, although he did know that Texas and lots of other land had once belonged to Mexico. After all, such tidbits of history were common knowledge in Mexico.´´
Watt mentions ´´Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, whose works are more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they and their eighteenth-century readers shared.´´ That´s to say, ´´the enduring connection between the distinctive literary qualities of the novel and those of the society in which it began to flourish.´´
J. C. Salazar will develop some other instances till it becomes clear to her central character that he has to step another and further stage of his (and his family´s) trajectory choosing Houston, in 1955, to ´´end his migrant worker journeys (…) determined to find a place to buy and begin developing his very own homestead.´´
In my view, we readers are also stepping an utter level of her narrative, which implies a deeper inadequacy of Ramiro and his wife Eliza to the American way of life, beginning with their ignorance of the English language as well as of the acculturation and americanization of their kids. A real divorce between the two generations, ´´increasingly balkanized lives.´´
Painful pages. The whole family shares an unstable, conflicting atmosphere as the three elder children open their way as if by means of forceps working, marrying and thus slowly loosening home ties, even if the central figures of the parents will remain like central entities according to their original culture. Their siblings who came later would choose America as sort of inner reality, inner condition.
Writes Salazar: ´´The years were passing and America was moving at speeds incomprehensible to the immigrant families like Ramiro´s. Yes, outside the Ocañas home, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and the country was about to explode from dreams deferred. But inside the immigrant´s home, such world-shaking events were just a ripple.´´
´´What Ramiro failed to understand was that the kids were viewing the world as American teenagers who depended on parental guidance and encouragement when pursuing s project or a goal. Instead, Ramiro and Eliza thought of the kids´ development as a kind of survival of the fittest, naturally falling into their niche in the world.´´
J. C. Salazar drives ´´Of Dreams and Thorns ´´ to a final turning point acknowledging all her love and respect to a people, a culture (her own) gifting us a pure homage to the concept of a pioneer, Ramiro, whom she follows till his agony and death with proud, delicate words: ´´He had done everything in his power to garner loyalty and commitment from the children, but the change in cultures in the kids as they matured terrified him, and he became convinced that they would indeed abandon him in his old age. He had begun to feel the weight of time on his body. Now middle aged, he missed occasional days of work because of undetermined illness.´´
No matter if he had been a despotic, authoritarian father, a suffocating husband. He was leading them to a thorny dream. Nobody abandoned him. Not his beloved, subdued Eliza, oppressed by her sexual/moral traumas, by her love, her duty to love. Not by his unpredictable, loving kids. Not even by his nightmares.
Sources:
The Largest Mass Deportation in American History, Erin Blakemore, History, https://www.history.com/newsoperation...
The 1950s, History.com Editors
The Rise of the English Novel, Ian Watt, University of California Press.
During the 1950s, the United States was the strongest military power. Its economy was booming, consumer goods were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. The nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exacerbated the underlying divisions in American society.
To worsen this already complex scenario, millions of illegal immigrants continued to cross the southern border by early 1950s. The cheap latino work-force, mainly Mexican, fled their countries, entered the American territory searching for stable or even temporary jobs to overcome poverty, diseases and an enduring lack of opportunities or future.
Recently, commenting President Dwight Eisenhower (1953/1961) immigration enforcement plan, shamefully called Operation Wetback (´´as many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower era´´), the now Republican President Donald Trump said:
´´Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower (…) moved 1,5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them beyond the border, they came back. Didn´t like it. Moved´em waaaay south, they never came back. (…) We have no choice. We. Have. No. Choice.´´
The evidence and statements by Border Patrol agents in the 1950s and afterwards disagree with Mr. Trump´s analysis. Increased immigration enforcement plans did not reduce unauthorized immigration in the 1950s, legal migration did.
One of them was Operation Bracero (manual work-force) guest worker visa program, enacted ´´in 1942 under the name of Mexican Farm Labor Program.´´ During the early, more regulated, and thus restricted phase of the Bracero program, unauthorized immigrants continued to cross the border which resulted in almost two million of them living in the United States by early 1950s.
The main character of ´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´, by J. C. Salazar, the 28 year old Ramiro Ocañas, from Naranjales, Mexico, does not leave his poor, underdeveloped community illegaly in 1950. He bears a legal worker visa heading to Chicago, where lives and works his friend Nico.
J. C. Salazar permeates circa the first third of her consistent latino saga to depict Ramiro´s background: she conveys us an authentic anthropological treatise on the immigrant world, managing fine ethnocentric data collected from a needy, backwarded community, on men´s and women´s roles who live under rigid moral codes and feed their breed with a brave, proud cultural heritage. Women as fortresses, men as totems.
´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´ readers are offered a narrative that since its beginnings grows in a steady, plain crescendo to attain higher notes from the moment that Ramiro decides to leave Chicago behind, heading to his California dream: ´´It was also that he had never felt quite at ease in Chicago. The city was not really for him. (…) Perhaps it was simply a matter of his associating the city with the loneliness he felt over his family.´´
´´Ramiro looked around and for the first time saw a vivid picture of ethnic and racial division among the workers. He accepted that there were differences among the races, ethnicities, and cultures because even back home he felt uncomfortable about it and resented that his friend was turned away.´´
´´His community in Naranjales was a northern Mexico community, primarily composed of descendants of European peasant stock, with perhaps less than half being of Mestizo heritage. In his region of Mexico, there had never been more than a few scattered families of indigenous looks or manner. Folks like his family tended to look down on Indians as somehow less civilized.´´
I´d like to note at this point that J. C. Salazar consolidates her fiction mastery inscribing it definitely into the tradition of European novel, as analysed by Ian Watt in his ´´The Rise of the English Novel´´, dedicated to the prose of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. The novel as a form of literature that reflects more plainly the birth of a midle class in urban centers, individualism and innovation as foundations of Modernity.
One of her paragraphs asserts it: ´´Ramiros´s limited education and exposure to the world prevented him from knowing about the history of slavery or Jim Crow in America. He also lacked understanding of the Chicago struggles over the century since the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty was signed, giving the United States almost half of Mexico in what was now the western United States and Texas, although he did know that Texas and lots of other land had once belonged to Mexico. After all, such tidbits of history were common knowledge in Mexico.´´
Watt mentions ´´Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, whose works are more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they and their eighteenth-century readers shared.´´ That´s to say, ´´the enduring connection between the distinctive literary qualities of the novel and those of the society in which it began to flourish.´´
J. C. Salazar will develop some other instances till it becomes clear to her central character that he has to step another and further stage of his (and his family´s) trajectory choosing Houston, in 1955, to ´´end his migrant worker journeys (…) determined to find a place to buy and begin developing his very own homestead.´´
In my view, we readers are also stepping an utter level of her narrative, which implies a deeper inadequacy of Ramiro and his wife Eliza to the American way of life, beginning with their ignorance of the English language as well as of the acculturation and americanization of their kids. A real divorce between the two generations, ´´increasingly balkanized lives.´´
Painful pages. The whole family shares an unstable, conflicting atmosphere as the three elder children open their way as if by means of forceps working, marrying and thus slowly loosening home ties, even if the central figures of the parents will remain like central entities according to their original culture. Their siblings who came later would choose America as sort of inner reality, inner condition.
Writes Salazar: ´´The years were passing and America was moving at speeds incomprehensible to the immigrant families like Ramiro´s. Yes, outside the Ocañas home, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and the country was about to explode from dreams deferred. But inside the immigrant´s home, such world-shaking events were just a ripple.´´
´´What Ramiro failed to understand was that the kids were viewing the world as American teenagers who depended on parental guidance and encouragement when pursuing s project or a goal. Instead, Ramiro and Eliza thought of the kids´ development as a kind of survival of the fittest, naturally falling into their niche in the world.´´
J. C. Salazar drives ´´Of Dreams and Thorns ´´ to a final turning point acknowledging all her love and respect to a people, a culture (her own) gifting us a pure homage to the concept of a pioneer, Ramiro, whom she follows till his agony and death with proud, delicate words: ´´He had done everything in his power to garner loyalty and commitment from the children, but the change in cultures in the kids as they matured terrified him, and he became convinced that they would indeed abandon him in his old age. He had begun to feel the weight of time on his body. Now middle aged, he missed occasional days of work because of undetermined illness.´´
No matter if he had been a despotic, authoritarian father, a suffocating husband. He was leading them to a thorny dream. Nobody abandoned him. Not his beloved, subdued Eliza, oppressed by her sexual/moral traumas, by her love, her duty to love. Not by his unpredictable, loving kids. Not even by his nightmares.
Sources:
The Largest Mass Deportation in American History, Erin Blakemore, History, https://www.history.com/newsoperation...
The 1950s, History.com Editors
The Rise of the English Novel, Ian Watt, University of California Press.
During the 1950s, the United States was the strongest military power. Its economy was booming, consumer goods were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. The nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exacerbated the underlying divisions in American society.
To worsen this already complex scenario, millions of illegal immigrants continued to cross the southern border by early 1950s. The cheap latino work-force, mainly Mexican, fled their countries, entered the American territory searching for stable or even temporary jobs to overcome poverty, diseases and an enduring lack of opportunities or future.
Recently, commenting President Dwight Eisenhower (1953/1961) immigration enforcement plan, shamefully called Operation Wetback (´´as many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower era´´), the now Republican President Donald Trump said:
´´Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower (…) moved 1,5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them beyond the border, they came back. Didn´t like it. Moved´em waaaay south, they never came back. (…) We have no choice. We. Have. No. Choice.´´
The evidence and statements by Border Patrol agents in the 1950s and afterwards disagree with Mr. Trump´s analysis. Increased immigration enforcement plans did not reduce unauthorized immigration in the 1950s, legal migration did.
One of them was Operation Bracero (manual work-force) guest worker visa program, enacted ´´in 1942 under the name of Mexican Farm Labor Program.´´ During the early, more regulated, and thus restricted phase of the Bracero program, unauthorized immigrants continued to cross the border which resulted in almost two million of them living in the United States by early 1950s.
The main character of ´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´, by J. C. Salazar, the 28 year old Ramiro Ocañas, from Naranjales, Mexico, does not leave his poor, underdeveloped community illegaly in 1950. He bears a legal worker visa heading to Chicago, where lives and works his friend Nico.
J. C. Salazar permeates circa the first third of her consistent latino saga to depict Ramiro´s background: she conveys us an authentic anthropological treatise on the immigrant world, managing fine ethnocentric data collected from a needy, backwarded community, on men´s and women´s roles who live under rigid moral codes and feed their breed with a brave, proud cultural heritage. Women as fortresses, men as totems.
´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´ readers are offered a narrative that since its beginnings grows in a steady, plain crescendo to attain higher notes from the moment that Ramiro decides to leave Chicago behind, heading to his California dream: ´´It was also that he had never felt quite at ease in Chicago. The city was not really for him. (…) Perhaps it was simply a matter of his associating the city with the loneliness he felt over his family.´´
´´Ramiro looked around and for the first time saw a vivid picture of ethnic and racial division among the workers. He accepted that there were differences among the races, ethnicities, and cultures because even back home he felt uncomfortable about it and resented that his friend was turned away.´´
´´His community in Naranjales was a northern Mexico community, primarily composed of descendants of European peasant stock, with perhaps less than half being of Mestizo heritage. In his region of Mexico, there had never been more than a few scattered families of indigenous looks or manner. Folks like his family tended to look down on Indians as somehow less civilized.´´
I´d like to note at this point that J. C. Salazar consolidates her fiction mastery inscribing it definitely into the tradition of European novel, as analysed by Ian Watt in his ´´The Rise of the English Novel´´, dedicated to the prose of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. The novel as a form of literature that reflects more plainly the birth of a midle class in urban centers, individualism and innovation as foundations of Modernity.
One of her paragraphs asserts it: ´´Ramiros´s limited education and exposure to the world prevented him from knowing about the history of slavery or Jim Crow in America. He also lacked understanding of the Chicago struggles over the century since the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty was signed, giving the United States almost half of Mexico in what was now the western United States and Texas, although he did know that Texas and lots of other land had once belonged to Mexico. After all, such tidbits of history were common knowledge in Mexico.´´
Watt mentions ´´Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, whose works are more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they and their eighteenth-century readers shared.´´ That´s to say, ´´the enduring connection between the distinctive literary qualities of the novel and those of the society in which it began to flourish.´´
J. C. Salazar will develop some other instances till it becomes clear to her central character that he has to step another and further stage of his (and his family´s) trajectory choosing Houston, in 1955, to ´´end his migrant worker journeys (…) determined to find a place to buy and begin developing his very own homestead.´´
In my view, we readers are also stepping an utter level of her narrative, which implies a deeper inadequacy of Ramiro and his wife Eliza to the American way of life, beginning with their ignorance of the English language as well as of the acculturation and americanization of their kids. A real divorce between the two generations, ´´increasingly balkanized lives.´´
Painful pages. The whole family shares an unstable, conflicting atmosphere as the three elder children open their way as if by means of forceps working, marrying and thus slowly loosening home ties, even if the central figures of the parents will remain like central entities according to their original culture. Their siblings who came later would choose America as sort of inner reality, inner condition.
Writes Salazar: ´´The years were passing and America was moving at speeds incomprehensible to the immigrant families like Ramiro´s. Yes, outside the Ocañas home, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and the country was about to explode from dreams deferred. But inside the immigrant´s home, such world-shaking events were just a ripple.´´
´´What Ramiro failed to understand was that the kids were viewing the world as American teenagers who depended on parental guidance and encouragement when pursuing s project or a goal. Instead, Ramiro and Eliza thought of the kids´ development as a kind of survival of the fittest, naturally falling into their niche in the world.´´
J. C. Salazar drives ´´Of Dreams and Thorns ´´ to a final turning point acknowledging all her love and respect to a people, a culture (her own) gifting us a pure homage to the concept of a pioneer, Ramiro, whom she follows till his agony and death with proud, delicate words: ´´He had done everything in his power to garner loyalty and commitment from the children, but the change in cultures in the kids as they matured terrified him, and he became convinced that they would indeed abandon him in his old age. He had begun to feel the weight of time on his body. Now middle aged, he missed occasional days of work because of undetermined illness.´´
No matter if he had been a despotic, authoritarian father, a suffocating husband. He was leading them to a thorny dream. Nobody abandoned him. Not his beloved, subdued Eliza, oppressed by her sexual/moral traumas, by her love, her duty to love. Not by his unpredictable, loving kids. Not even by his nightmares.
Sources:
The Largest Mass Deportation in American History, Erin Blakemore, History, https://www.history.com/newsoperation...
The 1950s, History.com Editors
The Rise of the English Novel, Ian Watt, University of California Press.
During the 1950s, the United States was the strongest military power. Its economy was booming, consumer goods were available to more people than ever before. However, the 1950s were also an era of great conflict. The nascent civil rights movement and the crusade against communism at home and abroad exacerbated the underlying divisions in American society.
To worsen this already complex scenario, millions of illegal immigrants continued to cross the southern border by early 1950s. The cheap latino work-force, mainly Mexican, fled their countries, entered the American territory searching for stable or even temporary jobs to overcome poverty, diseases and an enduring lack of opportunities or future.
Recently, commenting President Dwight Eisenhower (1953/1961) immigration enforcement plan, shamefully called Operation Wetback (´´as many as 1.3 million people may have been swept up in the Eisenhower era´´), the now Republican President Donald Trump said:
´´Let me just tell you that Dwight Eisenhower (…) moved 1,5 million illegal immigrants out of this country. Moved them beyond the border, they came back. Didn´t like it. Moved´em waaaay south, they never came back. (…) We have no choice. We. Have. No. Choice.´´
The evidence and statements by Border Patrol agents in the 1950s and afterwards disagree with Mr. Trump´s analysis. Increased immigration enforcement plans did not reduce unauthorized immigration in the 1950s, legal migration did.
One of them was Operation Bracero (manual work-force) guest worker visa program, enacted ´´in 1942 under the name of Mexican Farm Labor Program.´´ During the early, more regulated, and thus restricted phase of the Bracero program, unauthorized immigrants continued to cross the border which resulted in almost two million of them living in the United States by early 1950s.
The main character of ´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´, by J. C. Salazar, the 28 year old Ramiro Ocañas, from Naranjales, Mexico, does not leave his poor, underdeveloped community illegaly in 1950. He bears a legal worker visa heading to Chicago, where lives and works his friend Nico.
J. C. Salazar permeates circa the first third of her consistent latino saga to depict Ramiro´s background: she conveys us an authentic anthropological treatise on the immigrant world, managing fine ethnocentric data collected from a needy, backwarded community, on men´s and women´s roles who live under rigid moral codes and feed their breed with a brave, proud cultural heritage. Women as fortresses, men as totems.
´´Of Dreams and Thorns´´ readers are offered a narrative that since its beginnings grows in a steady, plain crescendo to attain higher notes from the moment that Ramiro decides to leave Chicago behind, heading to his California dream: ´´It was also that he had never felt quite at ease in Chicago. The city was not really for him. (…) Perhaps it was simply a matter of his associating the city with the loneliness he felt over his family.´´
´´Ramiro looked around and for the first time saw a vivid picture of ethnic and racial division among the workers. He accepted that there were differences among the races, ethnicities, and cultures because even back home he felt uncomfortable about it and resented that his friend was turned away.´´
´´His community in Naranjales was a northern Mexico community, primarily composed of descendants of European peasant stock, with perhaps less than half being of Mestizo heritage. In his region of Mexico, there had never been more than a few scattered families of indigenous looks or manner. Folks like his family tended to look down on Indians as somehow less civilized.´´
I´d like to note at this point that J. C. Salazar consolidates her fiction mastery inscribing it definitely into the tradition of European novel, as analysed by Ian Watt in his ´´The Rise of the English Novel´´, dedicated to the prose of Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. The novel as a form of literature that reflects more plainly the birth of a midle class in urban centers, individualism and innovation as foundations of Modernity.
One of her paragraphs asserts it: ´´Ramiros´s limited education and exposure to the world prevented him from knowing about the history of slavery or Jim Crow in America. He also lacked understanding of the Chicago struggles over the century since the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty was signed, giving the United States almost half of Mexico in what was now the western United States and Texas, although he did know that Texas and lots of other land had once belonged to Mexico. After all, such tidbits of history were common knowledge in Mexico.´´
Watt mentions ´´Defoe, Richardson and Fielding, whose works are more profoundly conditioned by the new climate of social and moral experience which they and their eighteenth-century readers shared.´´ That´s to say, ´´the enduring connection between the distinctive literary qualities of the novel and those of the society in which it began to flourish.´´
J. C. Salazar will develop some other instances till it becomes clear to her central character that he has to step another and further stage of his (and his family´s) trajectory choosing Houston, in 1955, to ´´end his migrant worker journeys (…) determined to find a place to buy and begin developing his very own homestead.´´
In my view, we readers are also stepping an utter level of her narrative, which implies a deeper inadequacy of Ramiro and his wife Eliza to the American way of life, beginning with their ignorance of the English language as well as of the acculturation and americanization of their kids. A real divorce between the two generations, ´´increasingly balkanized lives.´´
Painful pages. The whole family shares an unstable, conflicting atmosphere as the three elder children open their way as if by means of forceps working, marrying and thus slowly loosening home ties, even if the central figures of the parents will remain like central entities according to their original culture. Their siblings who came later would choose America as sort of inner reality, inner condition.
Writes Salazar: ´´The years were passing and America was moving at speeds incomprehensible to the immigrant families like Ramiro´s. Yes, outside the Ocañas home, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and the country was about to explode from dreams deferred. But inside the immigrant´s home, such world-shaking events were just a ripple.´´
´´What Ramiro failed to understand was that the kids were viewing the world as American teenagers who depended on parental guidance and encouragement when pursuing s project or a goal. Instead, Ramiro and Eliza thought of the kids´ development as a kind of survival of the fittest, naturally falling into their niche in the world.´´
J. C. Salazar drives ´´Of Dreams and Thorns ´´ to a final turning point acknowledging all her love and respect to a people, a culture (her own) gifting us a pure homage to the concept of a pioneer, Ramiro, whom she follows till his agony and death with proud, delicate words: ´´He had done everything in his power to garner loyalty and commitment from the children, but the change in cultures in the kids as they matured terrified him, and he became convinced that they would indeed abandon him in his old age. He had begun to feel the weight of time on his body. Now middle aged, he missed occasional days of work because of undetermined illness.´´
No matter if he had been a despotic, authoritarian father, a suffocating husband. He was leading them to a thorny dream. Nobody abandoned him. Not his beloved, subdued Eliza, oppressed by her sexual/moral traumas, by her love, her duty to love. Not by his unpredictable, loving kids. Not even by his nightmares.
Sources:
The Largest Mass Deportation in American History, Erin Blakemore, History, https://www.history.com/newsoperation...
The 1950s, History.com Editors
The Rise of the English Novel, Ian Watt, University of California Press.
abandoned
September 23, 2020Nowadays we often read books technically rich, with wonderful forms and creative narrative structure, but when it comes to the "story" most of them have nothing to tell us. This book has got a story to tell. A story of a life, told from its most important turning point, scene by scene, with all kind of the conflicts a character could face.
This story is about a mexican guy who has a dream of making his family prosperous, and as everybody knows, there is no way but immigration to America. But there, prosperity is not the only thing waiting for him...
"He had been starving to make love to Eliza, but now any woman would do. And Mary was not just any woman. She was better. Mary became the vessel to unload the repression of all the long, lonely weeks. He raged to possess her and he let himself be led by her into the house and into her bedroom."
So if you are tired of digging up the story hidden deep under layers of forms and techniques, and you miss some old-fashioned style of "tell me all of it" this is the book you might enjoy.
And if you've got a critical attitude, a literary theory based mind, and an editor eye, which is sensitive to modern literature rules, this one is not adhere to what you believe in and there will be points in the story that long detailed descriptions and several "tell, don't show" samples would harass you.
-
"Martin had been one of the early leavers. He beat out most others by some four years, so he was better acclimated to the lifestyle of the United States. It bothered Ramiro that Martin acted as if his seniority in the country somehow gave him authority over the newcomers. It also bothered Ramiro that Martin openly flirted with Mary. He pretended that it was not about jealousy. After all, Mary had assured him that he was the only one. Martin had a wife and four boys back home, and Ramiro had a hunch the guy was not faithful to his wife nor devoted enough to his boys. Never mind that he had his own minor slip on record, but Ramiro justified his mistake as brief and over forever. All of these things made Ramiro uneasy in this new partnership, but he hoped it would all work out in the end."
-
"The month of March was all about spring thinning of the peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots. The orchards had all lost their blossoms and each tree was heavy with small green fruit that required thinning in order to insure full development of the remaining fruit desired by the wholesalers. Once the fruit began to mature, the trees were pruned to allow maximum sunlight for the fruit to ripen to its sweetest level. Finally the harvesting happened around June and July when all the crews climbed on the ladders that they hauled and leaned against the trees. They removed the fruit, placing it into large wooden bushels they hoist on their shoulders."
-
“Have we got everything? Let’s see. I have the khaki pants, the long sleeve denim shirts, the wide rimmed hat, the supply of neckerchiefs for sun protection and to cover the nose so as not to breathe all that dust and pesticides, more bandanas for the sweat, and canvas gloves. The farmers will provide the pruning tools and such.” He was mostly talking to himself because Martin wasn’t much into the details of such things. “Oh, and the lunch box, of course. I think that’s it.”
-
"Ramiro got out of the car and greeted Salomon and the boys. It was a warm embrace with much backslapping and welcome gestures. Martin followed Ramiro and the men greeted him warmly, too."
This story is about a mexican guy who has a dream of making his family prosperous, and as everybody knows, there is no way but immigration to America. But there, prosperity is not the only thing waiting for him...
"He had been starving to make love to Eliza, but now any woman would do. And Mary was not just any woman. She was better. Mary became the vessel to unload the repression of all the long, lonely weeks. He raged to possess her and he let himself be led by her into the house and into her bedroom."
So if you are tired of digging up the story hidden deep under layers of forms and techniques, and you miss some old-fashioned style of "tell me all of it" this is the book you might enjoy.
And if you've got a critical attitude, a literary theory based mind, and an editor eye, which is sensitive to modern literature rules, this one is not adhere to what you believe in and there will be points in the story that long detailed descriptions and several "tell, don't show" samples would harass you.
-
"Martin had been one of the early leavers. He beat out most others by some four years, so he was better acclimated to the lifestyle of the United States. It bothered Ramiro that Martin acted as if his seniority in the country somehow gave him authority over the newcomers. It also bothered Ramiro that Martin openly flirted with Mary. He pretended that it was not about jealousy. After all, Mary had assured him that he was the only one. Martin had a wife and four boys back home, and Ramiro had a hunch the guy was not faithful to his wife nor devoted enough to his boys. Never mind that he had his own minor slip on record, but Ramiro justified his mistake as brief and over forever. All of these things made Ramiro uneasy in this new partnership, but he hoped it would all work out in the end."
-
"The month of March was all about spring thinning of the peaches, nectarines, plums, and apricots. The orchards had all lost their blossoms and each tree was heavy with small green fruit that required thinning in order to insure full development of the remaining fruit desired by the wholesalers. Once the fruit began to mature, the trees were pruned to allow maximum sunlight for the fruit to ripen to its sweetest level. Finally the harvesting happened around June and July when all the crews climbed on the ladders that they hauled and leaned against the trees. They removed the fruit, placing it into large wooden bushels they hoist on their shoulders."
-
“Have we got everything? Let’s see. I have the khaki pants, the long sleeve denim shirts, the wide rimmed hat, the supply of neckerchiefs for sun protection and to cover the nose so as not to breathe all that dust and pesticides, more bandanas for the sweat, and canvas gloves. The farmers will provide the pruning tools and such.” He was mostly talking to himself because Martin wasn’t much into the details of such things. “Oh, and the lunch box, of course. I think that’s it.”
-
"Ramiro got out of the car and greeted Salomon and the boys. It was a warm embrace with much backslapping and welcome gestures. Martin followed Ramiro and the men greeted him warmly, too."
October 10, 2018
I really enjoyed reading this book.Ramiro,his stubbornness,commitment to his family and traditions.I love the fact that whatever he set out to do,he did and did it very well,even his overbearing character towards the ones he loves,yes he was protective,but oh my,I don't wish to be those kids.
He was a devoted and loving husband.But he could have done more with his life,he had great potential.He let down his family in that regard for me.
He was a devoted and loving husband.But he could have done more with his life,he had great potential.He let down his family in that regard for me.
April 17, 2019
Rating this book was difficult. As a novel, I would have reached to give it 3 stars. But as memoir, it deserved more.
Those of us born to parents who grew to adulthood in another country, but gave birth to us or brought us as babies to North America share some experiences, regardless of our parents' native languages, religion, or the shade of our skin. Among our common experiences is the clash between the adults' wish to maintain traditions, and the children's wish to assimilate.
Of Dreams and Thorns, J.C. Salazar's fictionalized memoir of his family's migration to the United States from Mexico in the late 50's and early 60's, is an account of the life of a young husband and father who chooses separation from his family in order to earn money to fund his dream: a small farm in his home village. The story of the brief fulfilment of that dream, the factors that lead him to abandon it, and to move his family to Houston – with the inevitable collision of cultural expectations – is told in immersive detail.
The story is told in third person omniscient, so while we know the intentions and motivations and emotions of Ramiro, the central character of the book, we also know what other characters are thinking and feeling. But the omniscience is sometimes tentative, as if the narrator is deducing what these emotions are, increasing the strong sense I had that the narrator is one of Ramiro's children looking back on his family's life.
As a memoir, even a fictionalized one, Of Dreams and Thorns is a comprehensive look at the experiences of one family, of a hard-working, ambitious, flawed man building a life for his family, and doing his best to maintain the traditions of his home culture and country in a new and confusing land. Within the small farming community I grew up in, many of the schoolmates of myself and my siblings were first-generation children, their parents searching for a better life than what Hungary and Germany, Italy and Portugal, Yugoslavia and Poland could offer. I saw the dichotomies and conflicts played out in my friends' houses; I knew a few myself, because even England and Canada were not the same in all values and expected behaviour. Salazar's book resonated with my experiences, one or two lived, many observed.
For anyone looking to understand the economic and social forces of that era that made people reach for a perceived better life in a new country, or to glimpse the price that was paid by adults uprooted from their communities and cultures, Of Dreams and Thorns serves well. It is a story told with deep love and respect, and, I believe, with clarity. As a novel, though, narrative choices undermine its effectiveness.
The immersive detail that is a strength if this book is considered as a fictionalized memoir overwhelms the plot in parts of the book. While the purpose of most scenes in either building character or motivation can be deduced, the degree of detail detracts from the building tension. As well, because of the scope of the story, taking place over more than 40 years, much is told to the reader. While this can be, and is, necessary, Salazar tends to warn when a significant occurrence is about to happen, e.g., "What happened next was the unthinkable for Eliza and a doom for Ramiro." For me, this device reduces the rising tension, instead of increasing it. Action and reaction would be enough to show the significance of the event. In a similar way, unneeded explanations are added to actions: "But (the children) did not rush to their father as might be expected."
In his best passages, Salazar lets his characters show us their thoughts, and conveys their emotions through their actions. There is strong dialogue in parts, and effective description. But Of Dreams and Thorns will remain with me as memoir, not as a novel; its characters and setting never became real to me as a novel's should, but were someone's memories of people and places dear to them.
Those of us born to parents who grew to adulthood in another country, but gave birth to us or brought us as babies to North America share some experiences, regardless of our parents' native languages, religion, or the shade of our skin. Among our common experiences is the clash between the adults' wish to maintain traditions, and the children's wish to assimilate.
Of Dreams and Thorns, J.C. Salazar's fictionalized memoir of his family's migration to the United States from Mexico in the late 50's and early 60's, is an account of the life of a young husband and father who chooses separation from his family in order to earn money to fund his dream: a small farm in his home village. The story of the brief fulfilment of that dream, the factors that lead him to abandon it, and to move his family to Houston – with the inevitable collision of cultural expectations – is told in immersive detail.
The story is told in third person omniscient, so while we know the intentions and motivations and emotions of Ramiro, the central character of the book, we also know what other characters are thinking and feeling. But the omniscience is sometimes tentative, as if the narrator is deducing what these emotions are, increasing the strong sense I had that the narrator is one of Ramiro's children looking back on his family's life.
As a memoir, even a fictionalized one, Of Dreams and Thorns is a comprehensive look at the experiences of one family, of a hard-working, ambitious, flawed man building a life for his family, and doing his best to maintain the traditions of his home culture and country in a new and confusing land. Within the small farming community I grew up in, many of the schoolmates of myself and my siblings were first-generation children, their parents searching for a better life than what Hungary and Germany, Italy and Portugal, Yugoslavia and Poland could offer. I saw the dichotomies and conflicts played out in my friends' houses; I knew a few myself, because even England and Canada were not the same in all values and expected behaviour. Salazar's book resonated with my experiences, one or two lived, many observed.
For anyone looking to understand the economic and social forces of that era that made people reach for a perceived better life in a new country, or to glimpse the price that was paid by adults uprooted from their communities and cultures, Of Dreams and Thorns serves well. It is a story told with deep love and respect, and, I believe, with clarity. As a novel, though, narrative choices undermine its effectiveness.
The immersive detail that is a strength if this book is considered as a fictionalized memoir overwhelms the plot in parts of the book. While the purpose of most scenes in either building character or motivation can be deduced, the degree of detail detracts from the building tension. As well, because of the scope of the story, taking place over more than 40 years, much is told to the reader. While this can be, and is, necessary, Salazar tends to warn when a significant occurrence is about to happen, e.g., "What happened next was the unthinkable for Eliza and a doom for Ramiro." For me, this device reduces the rising tension, instead of increasing it. Action and reaction would be enough to show the significance of the event. In a similar way, unneeded explanations are added to actions: "But (the children) did not rush to their father as might be expected."
In his best passages, Salazar lets his characters show us their thoughts, and conveys their emotions through their actions. There is strong dialogue in parts, and effective description. But Of Dreams and Thorns will remain with me as memoir, not as a novel; its characters and setting never became real to me as a novel's should, but were someone's memories of people and places dear to them.
November 27, 2018
First of all, many thanks to Booktasters for having this book be available!
When I first read the synopsis for this book, I was intrigued—as my own family are immigrants too, and for the most part, this book managed to keep me interested, though it waned quite a bit.
The book is less narrative driven and more about an exploration of character, that being, Ramiro, our protagonist. The book starts as him being an idealistic young man, desperate to the move to the US so that he can provide for his family. The beginning of the book is interesting, mostly because Ramiro feels so alienated and lost in a country that feels so foreign to him. However, the scenes back in Mexico feel a little aimless and meandering, other than just educating the reader on cultural differences.
The further you progress through the book, the more tightly wound the character relationships get. After Ramiro moves his family to Houston, and as they start to accumulate American culture, we see Ramiro struggling with his feelings of inadequacy, of feeling as though he is losing his children. Whilst this was an interesting concept, I would have liked to have seen it be more developed. Bar a line here or there, we never really see why Ramiro is filled with so much disdain for American culture, other than just patriotism to Mexico. The author explicitly says that in his later years of life, Ramiro becomes authoritarian in his discipline of this children, and his wife, and yet these complex scenes of a man slowly descending into chaos don’t seem to hold much emotion, but the solid foundation is there.
However, for that, his children’s resentment of him was something that added to the books appeal with Alicia marrying a man whom Ramiro deeply distrusted, or Carlos’ questioning nature. These scenes added more complexity and depth, but unfortunately, they were too little too few.
Ramiro as a character is portrayed as a deeply flawed character, but someone who, ultimately, has a good heart—but there aren’t nearly enough scenes that show how deeply he cares for his family, we as the reader are mostly just told that he cares for them, bar the very last chapter when they’re all exchanging stories about Ramiro’s life. The ending of the book is bittersweet, an ode to a man who didn’t achieve what he wanted and was left feeling unwanted and disrespected by his children. Personally, I would have liked to have seen Eliza grow more as a character, as she often felt smothered by Ramiro and as though she was a possession—and again, the ground work for this is laid down but seems to fizzle out by the end of the book.
Perhaps what I consider to be the book’s downfall is its knack of telling and not showing. Many scenes feel too glossed over, and the dialogue at times reads a little too unrealistic. There are many scenes, especially in the scenes between the siblings when they’re older that really portray how much they care for one another.
However, my second biggest critique is the ultimate romanticism of Ramiro after his death. On Mother’s Day, they all gather at Alicia’s house and give presents to Eliza and exchange stories of their father. Through this, they remember him fondly, and seem to gloss over a lot of his questionable behaviour. Despite this, Ramiro as a character keeps you invested enough to finish reading, mostly because you want for him to be able to change his ways, even though you know full well that it won’t happen.
Ultimately, this book has a lot of interesting elements, and lays the foundation for something rich, but to me, it missed the mark, just a little. Many plot lines seem to crop up and then disappear, such as the murder of Ramiro’s brother (which is the reason he moves his family to Houston to begin with), or Eliza’s craving for independence.
When I first read the synopsis for this book, I was intrigued—as my own family are immigrants too, and for the most part, this book managed to keep me interested, though it waned quite a bit.
The book is less narrative driven and more about an exploration of character, that being, Ramiro, our protagonist. The book starts as him being an idealistic young man, desperate to the move to the US so that he can provide for his family. The beginning of the book is interesting, mostly because Ramiro feels so alienated and lost in a country that feels so foreign to him. However, the scenes back in Mexico feel a little aimless and meandering, other than just educating the reader on cultural differences.
The further you progress through the book, the more tightly wound the character relationships get. After Ramiro moves his family to Houston, and as they start to accumulate American culture, we see Ramiro struggling with his feelings of inadequacy, of feeling as though he is losing his children. Whilst this was an interesting concept, I would have liked to have seen it be more developed. Bar a line here or there, we never really see why Ramiro is filled with so much disdain for American culture, other than just patriotism to Mexico. The author explicitly says that in his later years of life, Ramiro becomes authoritarian in his discipline of this children, and his wife, and yet these complex scenes of a man slowly descending into chaos don’t seem to hold much emotion, but the solid foundation is there.
However, for that, his children’s resentment of him was something that added to the books appeal with Alicia marrying a man whom Ramiro deeply distrusted, or Carlos’ questioning nature. These scenes added more complexity and depth, but unfortunately, they were too little too few.
Ramiro as a character is portrayed as a deeply flawed character, but someone who, ultimately, has a good heart—but there aren’t nearly enough scenes that show how deeply he cares for his family, we as the reader are mostly just told that he cares for them, bar the very last chapter when they’re all exchanging stories about Ramiro’s life. The ending of the book is bittersweet, an ode to a man who didn’t achieve what he wanted and was left feeling unwanted and disrespected by his children. Personally, I would have liked to have seen Eliza grow more as a character, as she often felt smothered by Ramiro and as though she was a possession—and again, the ground work for this is laid down but seems to fizzle out by the end of the book.
Perhaps what I consider to be the book’s downfall is its knack of telling and not showing. Many scenes feel too glossed over, and the dialogue at times reads a little too unrealistic. There are many scenes, especially in the scenes between the siblings when they’re older that really portray how much they care for one another.
However, my second biggest critique is the ultimate romanticism of Ramiro after his death. On Mother’s Day, they all gather at Alicia’s house and give presents to Eliza and exchange stories of their father. Through this, they remember him fondly, and seem to gloss over a lot of his questionable behaviour. Despite this, Ramiro as a character keeps you invested enough to finish reading, mostly because you want for him to be able to change his ways, even though you know full well that it won’t happen.
Ultimately, this book has a lot of interesting elements, and lays the foundation for something rich, but to me, it missed the mark, just a little. Many plot lines seem to crop up and then disappear, such as the murder of Ramiro’s brother (which is the reason he moves his family to Houston to begin with), or Eliza’s craving for independence.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 25, 2020
I started this book in Oct 2019. It is very slow to start and throughout much of the book. I've picked-up and finished countless other books in the middle of reading this one. I choose to read this book because I wanted to read about/from the Latinx experience. To some extent I understood the characterization of Ramiro in that context (and also an older generation, which I was reminded of in various date references in the text), but his story was so drawn out. The story picked up around chapter 5 when the woman and affair plot began, but eventually died out again. At chapter 16, it seemed there was a shift in writing and story was being told differently. This is true as your near the final chapters as well. In fact, the final chapters read much faster than the beginning chapter; there's still detail but not unnecessarily.
In the final chapters, you get insight into the children's lives. Some are told in more details than others. I also am still deciding how I feel about the inclusion of Sylvia being gay and Ramiro being okay with it: 1) is the author trying to out too much in the book 2) how after portraying such strong traditional action and emotions in every aspect and with every child does he suddenly just go with the flow on this account. I also wonder why Eliza chose to live with Sylvia after his death vs going back Mexico again or living with one of the children who had children of their own -thinking she would fall into her comfortable roll of keeping house and children but in a less restrictive form.
There were some minor grammatical errors at some points. Most notably some missing quotations in the final chapters (probably more notable having just read those chapters). There was also conflicting language when Carlos was telling his story of completing school while working; it changed from 3rd person to 1st person narrative with the use of "myself" when it was not in dialog.
The meaning of the title became apparent with Carlos' recounting memories. I thought that tie-in/wrap-up was nicely done; however, his final sentence was just okay. I think it probably could have ended with the thorns quote.
In the final chapters, you get insight into the children's lives. Some are told in more details than others. I also am still deciding how I feel about the inclusion of Sylvia being gay and Ramiro being okay with it: 1) is the author trying to out too much in the book 2) how after portraying such strong traditional action and emotions in every aspect and with every child does he suddenly just go with the flow on this account. I also wonder why Eliza chose to live with Sylvia after his death vs going back Mexico again or living with one of the children who had children of their own -thinking she would fall into her comfortable roll of keeping house and children but in a less restrictive form.
There were some minor grammatical errors at some points. Most notably some missing quotations in the final chapters (probably more notable having just read those chapters). There was also conflicting language when Carlos was telling his story of completing school while working; it changed from 3rd person to 1st person narrative with the use of "myself" when it was not in dialog.
The meaning of the title became apparent with Carlos' recounting memories. I thought that tie-in/wrap-up was nicely done; however, his final sentence was just okay. I think it probably could have ended with the thorns quote.
December 24, 2019
Of Dreams & Thorns has everything - romance, drama, family dynamics, and the psychology that accompanies the desire to understand the family unit. The book illustrates how so many individuals spend their young lives in angst, ambivalent of the matriarch and patriarch's parental methodologies. As much as we try to eventually understand why Mom and Dad did what they did (and often not liking what they did or didn't do) - we still have great love for them. Why? Because our parents performed the best they could with the circumstances that were arbitrarily given to them.
This story is the story of so many Mexicans that emigrate to the United states. The difference of language, customs, even coming from a rural background to the big city are huge struggles
Reading this book was like taking a trip down memory lane. His novel paints a picture of the sacrifices and hardships one has to endure when arriving to a new country out of necessity
What struck me most was the structure, cultural expectations, husband roles, wife roles, and a strong sense of family and community. And the threat of Ramiro losing his dream after Jacobo’s death. When Fernando died, I was reminded of the McCoy and Hatfield family feud in rural America wondering if the story would make a similar turn. I leave it to the reader to find out.
Generally, I felt the emotion, the challenges of moving a family of eight, and achievement. This was a period in history where a family of laborers looked to their children to work and help take care of the family finances as a tightly held family should in that period of history.
I also admire the depth of the author’s observations regarding Ramiro; why Ramiro struggled the way he did. Sometimes when a person is ram-rod straight they do not adjust easily to societal change.
This story is the story of so many Mexicans that emigrate to the United states. The difference of language, customs, even coming from a rural background to the big city are huge struggles
Reading this book was like taking a trip down memory lane. His novel paints a picture of the sacrifices and hardships one has to endure when arriving to a new country out of necessity
What struck me most was the structure, cultural expectations, husband roles, wife roles, and a strong sense of family and community. And the threat of Ramiro losing his dream after Jacobo’s death. When Fernando died, I was reminded of the McCoy and Hatfield family feud in rural America wondering if the story would make a similar turn. I leave it to the reader to find out.
Generally, I felt the emotion, the challenges of moving a family of eight, and achievement. This was a period in history where a family of laborers looked to their children to work and help take care of the family finances as a tightly held family should in that period of history.
I also admire the depth of the author’s observations regarding Ramiro; why Ramiro struggled the way he did. Sometimes when a person is ram-rod straight they do not adjust easily to societal change.
November 11, 2018
Of Dreams & Thorns is a sweeping tale of one immigrant family’s tumultuous journey to America and the riches family patriarch, Ramiro Ocañas believes he will find there. The reader is carried along on Ramiro’s quest to provide for his family and see his greatest dream, the ownership of a small, prosperous farm in his beloved home village of Naranjales, come to fruition. This story, so full of triumphs and disappointments, dreams realized and shattered, and tragedies and joy, could quite easily have been an epic saga had Salazar chosen to tell it in such a way. Salazar’s characters are wonderfully flawed and human, the complexities and nuances of familial and cultural interactions are conveyed patiently and honestly. This author’s writing style is forthright and entirely unselfconscious, free of pretentious or florid language which results in many vivid descriptions and simple, beautiful prose. Any reader would be hard pressed not to empathize with Ramiro despite his many flaws, not to marvel at and be frustrated by his long-suffering wife, or not cheer for the Ocañas children as they struggle to navigate the tangled web of two cultures that not only clash but seem to run parallel. Whether you are familiar with Mexican culture or find it totally alien, you will find yourself totally immersed in this tale and emerge with an understanding that is as visceral as it is intellectual.
December 15, 2018
Salazar takes us to the world of an immigrant Mexican family trying to live an honourable decent life.
Ramiro dreams of a prosperous life for his family in their own farm in Mexico. In pursue of his dream Ramiro is willing to endure whatever obstacle that may come his way; what he doesn’t take into account is life itself, seeming to have it’s own plans for the Ocana family.
Salazar takes you from the judgemental outsider to the heart of the family; giving you a totally different perspective. Now you can actually see and feel their struggle. You admire Ramiro for his proud relentless character; but then all of a sudden you’re mad at him for being such a demanding person and not more understanding fort he ones he loves. Eliza has the endurance of a rock, but you can’t agree with her either since you want to hear her own voice, her say in all that’s happening. And you watch the children grow up to find their own character one by one. To grow up and try and be more than their parents. It’s a fulfilling journey, you should definitely take.
Ramiro dreams of a prosperous life for his family in their own farm in Mexico. In pursue of his dream Ramiro is willing to endure whatever obstacle that may come his way; what he doesn’t take into account is life itself, seeming to have it’s own plans for the Ocana family.
Salazar takes you from the judgemental outsider to the heart of the family; giving you a totally different perspective. Now you can actually see and feel their struggle. You admire Ramiro for his proud relentless character; but then all of a sudden you’re mad at him for being such a demanding person and not more understanding fort he ones he loves. Eliza has the endurance of a rock, but you can’t agree with her either since you want to hear her own voice, her say in all that’s happening. And you watch the children grow up to find their own character one by one. To grow up and try and be more than their parents. It’s a fulfilling journey, you should definitely take.
December 27, 2019
Set in fifties, story of a migrant from South America going to Chicago in the beginning & moving to California, would have been a poignant depiction.
Had a vision of being a parallel to Steinbeck’s classic novels depicting similar stories, yet could not find any deeper message other than the mundane details of daily life, which were very slow moving! Have been able to read only about a 3rd of the book!
Had a vision of being a parallel to Steinbeck’s classic novels depicting similar stories, yet could not find any deeper message other than the mundane details of daily life, which were very slow moving! Have been able to read only about a 3rd of the book!
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