The Mexican American Experience, a radio program produced by the Longhorn Radio Network, includes interviews, music, and informational programs related to the Mexican American community and their concerns. Program summary: Host Alejandro Saenz interviews Dr. Ramon Saldivar on the major themes and issues in Chicano Literature. Dr. Ramon Saldivar discusses the major themes that contemporary Chicano authors explore through the novel. The authors discussed include Jose Antonio Villareal, Ron Arias, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, and Oscar Zeta Acosta. Dr. Saldivar explains that issues in the Chicano community come to be present in the Chicano Novels. He emphasizes three genres: historical fiction, the rural pastoral, and an emerging urban life genre. Saldivar claims that the emerging urban life genre reflects the long-standing Chicano presence in urban areas. The focus in the conversation revolved around themes: land, national identity, exploitation, nostalgia, duality, community tradition, consciousness. Many of the novels address the notion of duality of being both Mexican and American, or Catholic and not. Early novels on the other hand were preoccupied with the Chicano relationship to the land and its many variations. Identity is a constant them in Chicano literature. Moreover, the political themes are a continuous presence in both rural and urban literature. Duality extends to other areas, and is a source of tension for the characters. Chicano authors used the novel to question core beliefs and traditions, including and especially Catholicism. Dr. Saldivar says that the novel as a 'genre of question' allows the authors to question the validity of absolutes and tease out the duality they perceive. Moreover, to do so Chicano authors position themselves on the periphery of society so that they are able to question predominant social values in the Chicano community, like Catholicism. Keywords: Anglo, Assimilation, Atheism, Casa de las Americas prize, Catholic Church, Class Consciousness, Critical Community, Delete, Dream-Life, East Los Angeles, Exploitation, Faith, Havana, Cuba, Historical Novels, Iconoclasm, Identity, International Readership, Jose Antonio Villareal, Labor Commodification, Labor Movement, Land Ideology, Latin America, Literature, Macho, Marginal artist, Masculinity, Myth of Chicanos as rural population, National Duality, Nineteenth Century, Nostalgia, Novel, Ordinary lives of Chicano worlers, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Outlaw, Pedro Castillo, Periphery, Pocho by Jose Antonio Villareal, Poetry, Proletarianization, Proto-Chicano Novel, Ramon Saldivar, Religion, Religious Duality, Revolt of the Cockroach People, Richard Rubio, Rodolfo Anaya, Rolando Hinojosa Smith, Rolando Hinojosa-Smith, Ron Arias, Rural population, Social Borders, Texas, The autobiography of a brown buffalo, The Fifth Horseman, The plumb plum pickers, The Road to Tamazunchale, Tomas Rivera, Transition Novels, Virgin of Guadalupe, Working definition of identity, Y no se lo tragó la tierra. Broadcast date: 1977-07-06.
Creator/Contributor:
Longhorn Radio Network (creator), Saenz, Alejandro (host), and Saldívar, Ramón. (interviewee)
Date Created/Date Issued:
6/29/1977
Owning Repository:
Benson Latin American Collection, LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, The University of Texas at Austin
sound recordings, grabaciones sonoras, radio programs, programas de radio, and Audio
Extent:
14 minutes, 53 seconds
Rights - Use and Reproduction:
http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Language:
English
Place of Publication:
Austin (Tex.)
Topic:
American literature--Mexican American authors, Literatura estadounidense--Autores mexicanos americanos, Mexican Americans in literature, Literature and society, Politics and literature, and Religion in literature
Time Period Covered:
1970-1979
Place Name:
Texas, Los Angeles (Calif.), and Southwestern States