"The Rebel Is a Girl" from The Rebel (1920) (nat)

This is part of my new effort to read some "ethnic" literature so as to please the job market gods who will inevitably laugh uproariously at my pale white girl self for even feigning to read anything "ethnic." Regardless, here I go. All of these are in an anthology, The Latino Reader (it's not like they make an "ethnic" reader--and thanks to JD for the recommendation), so some of them are excerpts.

Anyway, the first is "The Rebel Is a Girl" from the autobiographical novel The Rebel by Leonor Villegas de Magnon (supposed to be an accent on that last o). The selection is a little schizophrenic. It begins detailing the poor people who live on the banks of the Rio Grande until storms come and raise the water level, threatening their homes, possessions, and lives with drowning. The story then moves to a group of bandits who ride through the poor sections looting but with the ultimate goal of arriving at the home of Don Joaquin (accent on the i) who has just gotten a stock of wine. They go, drink Don Joaquin's wine, and threaten his home only to be stopped by the sight of his wife having just given birth. Moments later the Federals come knocking, looking for the rebels (who have scattered). Don Joaquin shows them to the rebel--his newborn daughter. The Federals say, "a man child" and the don replies "the rebel is a girl," which prompts the Federals to leave. We then join The Rebel all grown up with a husband and kids of her own while she is a revolutionary working against the government in the Mexican Revolution. She and another woman rescue imprisoned soldiers with the help of the faithful Pancho (who was her father's servant). They also encounter a woman who brings telegrams with important information to The Rebel. And that's about it.

I'm just not sure what to do with this. All of that happened in a little over 13 pages--not much was devoted to any of the plot points and it seems just as I'm getting interested in one aspect, the author switches modes dramatically. I actually was more interested in the poor people moving house away from the river and that's only about a page of the selection. There is also a fair amount of awkward exposition about the historical situation--odd, out of narrative voice, let's give you a history lesson so you can understand the impact this story should have on you sections--when the author really should have been able to get me that information and make it more dynamic and important to the action of the story that I felt how important The Rebel was to the movement. Instead, I have little to no idea about the historical situation, what exactly The Rebel was doing, how it impacted the situation, nothing. I would hope the novel as a whole is much better or I'd feel schizophrenic after a few chapters and would wonder at the use of "recovering" this one (the author tried to publish it in Spanish in the 20s, failed, tried to publish it in English in the 40s, failed, a scholar found it and campaigned for it, finally getting it published in 94--39 years after the author's death).

We're off to a roaring positive start with my new project, huh? Next is William Carlos Williams. We all know how well I do with poetry . . . .