A New Chapter for U.S. Latino Writers : Mainstream Media, Publishers Giving Them New Attention

U.S. Latino writers are receiving increased attention from mainstream media and publishing houses.

* “Rain of Gold,” Victor Villasenor’s nonfiction saga of his family, and called a Latino “Roots,” received a six-figure price from Dell Publishing for its paperback rights.

* Sandra Cisneros’ book of short stories, “Woman Hollering Creek,” and her earlier “The House on Mango Street,” appeared in tony bookstores under the imprint of publishing giant Random House. A book tour and an audio book of Cisneros’ readings were part of the media blitz given the Chicana writer.

* In a landmark for Latino writers, Oscar Hijuelos won the 1990 Pulitzer prize in fiction for his “The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.” The novel by the Cuban-American author later was turned into a major motion picture.

* Former Los Angeles resident Luis J. Rodriguez, a journalist-poet, received a $40,000 Lannan Foundation Fellowship for poetry. The Los Angeles Times published an essay from his forthcoming autobiographical work, “Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A.” Rodriguez has read from his two books of poetry in Paris and London.

* Cuban-American writer Cristina Garcia, a Los Angeles resident, was a National Book Award finalist this year for her first novel, “Dreaming in Cuban.” It had been 16 years since Ron Arias’ “The Road to Tamazunchale” (Doubleday Anchor) became the first Latino novel to be nominated for it.

* Twenty-five years after his first novel, “Tattoo the Wicked Cross,” was published, Floyd Salas is back. “Buffalo Nickel,” an autobiographical account of the boxer-novelist’s life, received excellent reviews in major news media upon its publication this fall.

The book’s publisher, Arte Publico Press, a small press of Latino writers that first published Cisneros and Villasenor, has become the major source of exciting Latino writers.

The attention given to this new wave of Latino writing talent, mostly from the U.S. Southwest, is a far cry from past decades when few Latino literary voices received mainstream publication or notice.

Juan D. Bruce-Novoa, Spanish professor at UC Irvine, in his authoritative work “Chicano Authors,” lists Jose Antonio Villarreal’s “Pocho” (Doubleday, 1959) and John Rechy’s “City of Night” (Grove Press, 1963) as the first works of mainstream fiction by Chicano writers.

Villarreal’s book with its cover illustration of a migrant worker bore the description: “A novel about a young Mexican-American coming of age in California.” Rechy’s book with a stark black and white photo of a young homosexual street hustler on its cover became a national bestseller despite the novel’s theme.

In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, when the Chicano civil rights movement galvanized Mexican-American activists and their aspirations, a few small presses came into existence. Quinto Sol published some of the first major works of Chicano literature: Tomas Rivera’s “ . . . y no se lo trago la tierra” (1971); Rudolfo Anaya’s “Bless Me, Ultima” (1972), and Rolando Hinojosa’s “Estampas del valle” (1973).

Rolling Stone’s Strait Arrow Press published the late Oscar Z. Acosta’s major works, “Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo” (1972) and “Revolt of the Cockroach People” (1973). “I am Joaquin,” Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzales’ 1967 epic poem about Chicano awareness, went from a self-published to a mass-produced bilingual edition, the same route followed by Ricardo Sanchez’s “Canto y Grito Mi Liberacion: The Liberation of a Chicano Mind” in the 1970s.

Today, Latinos have a wider range of themes and genres to explore. And, while the boom in Latin American literature (Nobel prizes for Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Octavio Paz) provides an inspiration for U.S. Latino writers, it was not until Hijuelos’ “Mambo Kings” that they saw that a mainstream audience was possible for their work.

Other recent critically acclaimed works include:

* Montserrat Fontes’ first novel, “First Confession,” is narrated by a 9-year-old girl in a Texas border town. The veteran L.A. teacher’s book has been compared to Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

* Michael Nava’s “How Town” and “The Hidden Law.” Both books are part of Nava’s series about Henry Rios, a gay Chicano detective. Nava’s work has gone from a small gay press to publishing giant Harper Collins.

* Alex Abella’s “The Killing of the Saints” is L.A. detective fiction with a Latino lawyer protagonist. Some critics have called him “a Latino Raymond Chandler.”

* Rechy’s ninth novel, “The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez,” concerns a Chicana single mother who receives a sign from God.

Yet, despite the strides made by Latino writers, only a few have had the recognition or commercial success as other authors who are members of minorities, such as Alice Walker, have had.

“We’re at a point where some minority writing is being looked at more favorably because it’s a minority voice, instead of looking at the writer per se,” Los Angeles critic-writer Margarita Nieto said. “No serious writer likes to be pigeonholed that way. That era is past where you’re simply interesting because you’re a token. There is an awareness of how important women and gay voices are in what was once a macho-oriented world. We’ve seen a great breakthrough in the last seven years. It wasn’t possible to be gay and Latino back then.”

“Most of the names being touted . . . are only recognizable to a reduced circle of Chicano readers,” Bruce-Novoa said. “Despite the campaign to make Sandra Cisneros into a mainstream writer, you don’t see her name on the bestseller list yet.”

Nevertheless, Bruce-Novoa believes that the willingness of “the literary Establishment to award prizes to Latinos, and mainstream publishers to build on a Latino market and cross over new writers into those markets” will provide the big breakthrough for Latino writers into mainstream literature.

Nicolas Kanellos, professor of Spanish and director of the University of Houston’s Arte Publico Press, suggested that some works spawned by the Chicano movement “were didactic. . . . Our writers haven’t gone to creative writing schools to hone their craft,” he said. “More directly, they haven’t had literary sponsors for their work.”

Only some of the newer writers, such as Hijuelos and Cisneros, have attended writing schools and gotten support from the literary world.

“I think writing programs are valid and offer nourishment and support,” said Helena Maria Viramontes, a graduate student at UC Irvine’s creative writing program. Viramontes’ short stories collection, “The Moth and Other Stories,” has gone through several printings. Her second book, “Paris Rats in East L.A.,” is scheduled for publication next year.

Independent book publishers (Arte Publico Press, Bilingual Review Press of Arizona State University, Pajarito Press of Albuquerque, N.M., and others) have gained acceptance as alternatives to the established East Coast publishers.

Kanellos is quick to point out that Arte Publico Press is still a small concern. “Fifty percent of our market is novels for Latino studies or Spanish literature classes,” he said. “We’re finally breaking out into a few major markets, book chains, but there is still a resistance that all this is too ethnic. One distributor rejected Villasenor’s book for that reason.”

Although Kanellos sees Arte Publico’s market growing, he doesn’t see it rivaling major publishing houses. “I see a boutique type of press in our future--a quality branch of Latino writers. Still, our marketing budgets will never compare to those of the large publishing houses in the East.”

Alejandro Morales, a Chicano novelist-educator whose first works were written in Spanish and published in Mexico (“Caras viejas y vino nuevo”), believes that small presses and bookstores are great sources of inspiration that will nurture aspiring writers. Morales, whose novels are now published in the United States (“The Brick People” and “The Rag Doll Plagues”) owns a multicultural press and Courtyard Books in Tustin.

“Some child still in school will be inspired to write a novel or play or poem that will give voice to a new generation of writers,” Morales said.

Latino Writing

Following is a sampling of some recent works by U.S. Latino writers. It includes works that are generally available or mentioned in the accompanying article.

Novels, Short Stories Alex Abella, “The Killing of the Saints” Crown: $19; 1991. Julia Alvarez, “How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents” Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill: $16.95; 1991. Rudolfo Anaya, “Alburquerque” University of New Mexico Press: $19.95; 1992. Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek” Random House: $18, 1991; “The House on Mango Street” Random House Vantage Books: $9, 1989. Lucha Corpi, “Eulogy for a Brown Angel: A Mystery Novel” Arte Publico Press: $17.95; 1992. Miguel Duran, “Don’t Spit in My Corner” Arte Publico Press: $9.50; 1992. Montserrat Fontes, “First Confession” Norton: $9.95; 1991. Cristina Garcia, “Dreaming in Cuban” Knopf Publishers: $24.95; 1992. Gilbert Hernandez, “The Reticent Heart and Other Stories” Fantagraphics Books: $10.95; 1988. Jaime Hernandez, “The Lost Women and other Stories” Fantagraphics Books: $10.95; 1988. Arturo Islas, “Migrant Souls” Morrow: $8.95; 1990. Alejandro Morales, “The Brick People” Arte Publico Press: $10.50; 1989. “The Rag Doll Plagues” Arte Publico Press: $17.95; 1992. Michael Nava, “How Town” Ballantine Books: $3.99; 1990. John Rechy, “The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez” Arcade Publishing: $19.95; 1991. Gary Soto, “Taking Sides” Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: $15.95, 1991; “A Summer Life” Dell Publishing: $3.50, 1990.

Poetry Lorna Dee Cervantes, “From the Cables of Genocide: Poems on Love and Hunger” Arte Publico Press: $7; 1991. Sandra Cisneros, “My Wicked, Wicked Ways” Random House: $15; 1992. Luis J. Rodriguez, “The Concrete River” Curbstone Press: $9.95; 1991. Victor Valle, “Calendar of Souls, Wheel of Fire” Pacific Writers Press: $11.95; 1991.

Plays Carlos Morton, “Johnny Tenorio and Other Plays” Arte Publico Press: $13; 1992. Luis Valdez, “Zoot Suit and Other Plays” Arte Publico Press: $13; 1992.

Essays Linda Chavez, “Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation” Basic Books: $23; 1991. Al Martinez, “Ashes in the Rain” TQS Publications: $12; 1989. Ruben Martinez, “The Other Side: Fault Lines, Guerilla Saints, and the True Heart of Rock ‘n’ Roll” Verso: $24.95; 1992. Joan W. Moore, “Going Down to the Barrio: Homeboys and Homegirls in Change” Temple University Press: $39.95 cloth, $16.95 paper; 1992. Patricia Preciado Martin, “Songs My Mother Sang to Me” University of Arizona Press: $35 cloth, $16.95 paper; 1992. Jimmy Santiago Baca, “Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio” Red Crane Books: $17.95; 1992. Charley Trujillo “Soldados: Chicanos in Viet Nam” Chusma House Publications: $9.95; 1990. Anthology / Antologia “New Chicana / Chicano Writing” Vols. 1, 2; University of Arizona Press: $29.95 cloth, $13.95 paper; 1992.

Autobiographical Richard Rodriguez, “Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father” Viking: $21; 1992. Floyd Salas, “Buffalo Nickel” Arte Publico Press: $19.95; 1992. Victor Villasenor, “Rain of Gold” Arte Publico Press: $19; 1991.