Blackboard Should Now be Working!

Powerpoint presentations and other material are now available on Blackboard under “Content” and “Course Documents”. If you are still having trouble accessing the material, email me or contact the department and I’ll contact you directly.

Exam Dec 7

Just a reminder that tomorrow’s class will be the end of term exam. You will be asked to answer TWO questions – One relating to Helena Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus and ONE on Tomas Rivera’s ..y no se lo trago la tierra. There will also be a the choice of a comparative question which may be chosen instead of ONE of the other two options.

Secondary reading materials, exam questions, Tomas Rivera

Works by Tomás Rivera

MAJOR WORKS

• …y no se lo tragó la tierra (1971)
• The Searchers: Collected Poetry (1973)
• The Harvest: A Collection of Short Fiction (1989)

ESSAYS

• “Richard Rodríguez’s Hunger of Memory as Humanistic Antithesis.” MELUS. Amherst: 1984 . 11:4, 5-13. “The Great Plains as Refuge in Chicano Literature.” Faulkner,Virginia (ed. & introd.); Luebke, Frederick C. (ed. & pref.). Vision and Refuge: Essays on the Literature of the Great Plains. Lincoln:U of Nebraska P, 1982. 126-40.
• “Chicano Literature: The Establishment of Community.” Leal, Luis (ed.); Necochea, Fernando de (ed.); Lomeli, Francisco (ed.); Trujillo-Roberto, G. (ed.). A Decade of Chicano Literature (1970-1979): Critical Essays and Bibliography. Santa Barbara: La Causa, 1982. 9-17.
• “Chicano Literature: Life in Search of Form.” Trans./Ed. Cotera, Martha. Hufford, Larry (ed.). Bridging Two Cultures: Multidisciplinary Readings in Bilingual Bicultural Education. Austin: Nat. Educational Lab., 1980. 333-41.
• “Chicano Literature: Fiesta of the Living.” Books Abroad. Norman: 1975, 49. 439-52.
• “La teoria poética de Leon Felipe.” Cuadernos Americanos. México: 1973, 186. 193-214.
• “Into the Labyrinth: The Chicano in Literature.” Southwestern American Literature. Denton: 1972, 2. 90-97.

 

Last year’s in-class test questions: exam2010

 

Presentations 2010

Hey guys, a brief recap on the presentation material:

• Each group of two speaks for 20mins.
• The statement you received in class to talk about is to be used with any or all of the excerpts in your handout. There is also secondary material to be found on this site and in the library.
• You may use multimedia: video-clips (max 3mins), powerpoint, etc.
• Each group must hand up a written version of their talk, complete with references, after their presentation.

The purpose of the presentation is for you to formulate your own arguments based on the statements you received. We have and will discuss a lot of issues in class. You must find ways of linking these into broader ideas and arguments.

A few Tips and Pointers:

• What is my argument?
• Is it shown in the text? How?
• What topics were discussed in class that might be relevent to my paper?
• Are all my quotes relevant?
• Are they properly cited?

• Practice by reading over your presentation OUT LOUD. It may sound daft, but you read much faster in your head than you do when you speak out loud and you may also find the structure of a sentence fits better if you change it slightly for an oral presentation than if you were just writing an essay.
• Pace yourself. It’s not a race.
• Speak clearly – again practicing out loud can help this.
• Take some deep breaths.
• Listen to each others papers.

Papers Available

Just to let you guys know that your scripts for the exam on Rivera and Viramontes are corrected and available to view at the secretarial office of the Hispanic Department. Well done and thank you for a great semester. Best of luck with the rest of your exams.

Tomás Rivera

rivera powerpoint

General Information on Tomas Rivera:

Tomás Rivera

Tomás Rivera, “…y no se lo tragó la tierra”

Next week we will begin looking at the seminal work by Tomás Rivera …y no se lo tragó la tierra. Students are asked to read three sections; El año perdido, Los niños no se aguantaron and the final section Debajo de la casa. These are not long sections and a bilingual edition is available from the campus bookstore.

Youtube Links!

Here’s an excellent series of video clips on youtube which traces the history of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement, curtesy of Rafael. If any other student would like to leave comments or add to the site but don’t have access, feel free to email me at dearg.dawn@gmail.com

Unseen Text

Next Tuesday there will be an in class test. This will comprise of a text analysis of an unseen text. This test is worth 50% of the overall marks for the course.

Revision topics include:

• Language
• Art and the act of writing
• Identity
• Gender
• Notion of Borderlands
• Idea of hybridity

Class 4 – Vietnam

vietnam

The Vietnam war stood as the most cohesive element in the US Civil Rights Movement era. While racism, classism and sexism were found in the African-American, Chicano and Women’s Movements in varying degrees, most Americans opposed the war.

Martin Luther King’s vociferous denouncement of the war furthered the Anti-War cause. African Americans felt that the draft was discriminatory, that it targeted lower income families and areas. As Eldridge Cleaver pointed out, Black men in some Southern states were being denied the right to vote, yet were the most likely to be drafted into the war. Many Chicano leaders, like Chavez, looked to Martin Luther King and agreed with his views on the draft. As Mexican Americans also made up a large portion of the lower classes, they too demonstrated against the draft. Their assumptions were not incorrect. In an attempt to maintain the support of influential middle class citizens, university students were not initially drafted. This would later change, however.

There were other reasons that fueled the Anti-War Movement, for example, the use of napalm and agent orange, knowledge and pictures of Tet offensive, My Lai Massacre, Buddhist immolations etc.

For the African American and Chicano Movements, other than the draft practices, there was also the issue of funding cuts for aid agencies which dealt with the underprivileged. As the war progressed, expenditure was concentrated ever increasingly on the Vietnam conflict. This was compensated by the reduction of expenditure at home, which hit areas like the program for poverty President Johnson had himself begun.