Page 6 of Citizen Rex

Page 6 of Citizen Rex by Mario and Gilbert Hernandez is a fantastic example of what Scott McCloud would call “subject-to-subject” transitions between panels. It could be argued that some if not all of the transitions are scene-to-scene, but I would disagree because of the important aspect of the somewhat film-noir style narration over the entire page. This serves to connect all of the panels together as a single scene, making the transitions subject-to-subject.

This is actually a pretty interesting page, because without the narration from the main character, this would seem to be a bizarre sequence of one-panel scenes. If you took it away, the page would look very different:

With the text removed it’s a little easier to look at the panels as separate from each other. Certainly it doesn’t make as much sense that way, but it also doesn’t have the same flow. This is because the narration helps us to leap over the gaps that are in the “gutters.” That is, with a narrator we feel more comfortable making the connections between the panels, having a better idea what lies between them. Scott McCloud calls this concept closure, where we “mentally construct a continuous, unified reality” (Understanding Comics, 67). We see several moments, and agree to believe that something occurred to move us from one to the next. In panel two, Sergio is standing in a hallway, and in panel three he is entering the apartment building with Hazel. Without the agreement of closure, we would be baffled. If we accept that something happened in between them, we can imagine that he finds Hazel, leaves the Consciousness Clinic, and heads home.

This page, because we accept what must occur between panels, does a big job in moving the story forward. In a few short panels we are moved across a great distance of time and space, and can more efficiently get where the story is headed. If the artist had decided to show every step of the way it would be a very long and tedious sequence! With the narration from Sergio we are succinctly filled in, because really what happens between the Consciousness Clinic and the apartment are not important. We understand what’s happening with just a few panels to carry us along.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: What is the effect created by leaving the majority of this page without dialogue? How would it feel if there was dialogue in all of the panels?

"Miss Clairol" Questions

What is Arlene getting ready for? Why does Arlene put so much effort into primping herself? How does Viramontes comment on the lower-class experience through this ritual?

What item does Arlene first consider at K-Mart? What does the constantly-changing haircolor say about Arlene? About life as a Chicana in a post-Chicano world?

On the Education of Chicano Children

A prevalent theme throughout Richard Rodriguez's short memoir “Aria” is education. He talks about language in the private and public spheres, his main public location (when he was a child) being school. Education is also given consideration in Tomas Rivera's novella ...And The Earth Did Not Devour Him, and I feel that the two of them have a similar attitude about approaching American education from a Chicano background. Both writers treat school as being an important part of becoming a successful person, but show the hardships of coming into the American school system from a different culture. However, despite the difficulties both writers end up emphasizing the importance of schooling.

The first time Rivera talks about school is in the chapter “It's That It Hurts” wherein the boy has been expelled from school for fighting with a white classmate that attacked him. The boy's anxiety about telling his parents that he got kicked out of school indicates the importance they put on him going to school and being successful. Over and over he asks himself “What do I do?” and “What do I tell them?” He even worries they'll send him to a reformatory school. Clearly, this subject is important to him and his family. So too we see in “Aria” that school is seen as important by Richard and his family. When the nuns come to speak to his parents about him having trouble with English they are completely receptive to the idea of speaking English at home for the sake of his education. School is presented as a place of anxiety for both children- the boy in Rivera's novella is often picked on and discriminated against, Richard having trouble using English as he is expected to- but at the same time school isn't something that they can just give up on.

There is also the idea of what can be achieved if you are successful in school. Rodriguez talks about learning English as something that was pivotal to his ability to gain confidence and a public identity. He asserts that though he might have been scorned by his Chicano family for becoming an English-speaker, he embraced the idea that public success wouldn't have been possible for him in America without speaking the American public language. In “It's That It Hurts,” the boy thinks about how badly his father wanted him to grow up to be a telephone operator, a profession for which, in America, it would be necessary to be a confident English-speaker. For the father this profession is a high goal, something that the boy would have to study hard and do well in school to be able to achieve. The voice of the father in the boy's head says, “He's smarter than anything. I just pray God helps him finish school so he can become an operator.” There is also the short anecdote after the chapter which appears to be a conversation between two children. The first child asks “ Why do y'all go to school so much?” to which the other replies, “My Dad says it's to prepare us. He says that if someday there's an opportunity, maybe they'll give it to us.” This seems to imply that going to school could give someone a chance at success that they wouldn't have otherwise.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Is it easier now for non-English speakers to achieve success of some kind in the United States, or is language always a barrier regardless of what cultural attitudes may have shifted?

A Close Reading

She could write to her father and ask maybe for money, just a loan, for the new baby's medical expenses. Well then if he'd rather she didn't. All right, she won't. Please don't any more. Please don't. She knows it's difficult saving money with all the bills they have, but how else are they going to get out of debt with the truck payments?And after the rent and the food and the electricity and the gas and the water and the who-knows-what, well, there's hardly anything left. But please, at least for the doctor visit. She won't ask for anything else. She has to. Why is she so anxious? Because.

At this point in “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros, the Mexican woman Cléofilas is married to Juan Pedro, an abusive Mexican-American man living in Texas. She is pregnant with their second child, and wants to go to the doctor for a checkup, or at least that's what she tells him. When she arrives at the doctor's office she begs for his help in escaping back home to Mexico, giving us the climax of her story.

This passage, like others in this story, is written in an interesting half-narration-half-dialogue that serves to explain a conversation while staying completely outside of it with a limited omnicient voice. Cisneros manages to avoid ever resorting to quotation marks in the whole piece, instead approaching all dialogue this way. This way of keeping the reader outside of the action gives us the impression of separation, as though we're watching from the outside (like the telenovelas Cleofilas loves to watch). The reader can also infer a sense of separation that Cléofilas has in her own life. This marriage is completely unlike how she imagined it would be, and even though she is living with Mexican-Americans she is an outsider from a very different culture.

Even as the style keeps us separate, it is still very easy to see how this conversation is happening. Cléofilas is at this point helpless in her life, pushed around and abused in this unromantic marriage. The detached way that, “Please don't any more. Please don't.” is presented lends a heartbreaking sort of irony to the passage, as it's easy to imagine Juan Pedro shouting his outrage at the thought of asking for money. Cléofilas can only plead with him, knowing that her only hope of escape is speaking to this doctor. The passage “She won't ask for anything else. She has to. Why is she so anxious? Because.” is also key, because it's our clue that she has already decided to leave him. We could also make the leap that she doesn't just want to write to her father for money, she also wants to write to him to tell him that she needs help. At any rate, this passage has interesting hints of foreshadow.

However, along with that feeling of helplessness is a hint of exasperation. She knows what to expect from her husband, and she's tired of it. The phrasing of the passage, “And after the rent and the food and the electricity and the gas and the water and the who-knows-what,” gives the impression that she disapproves of the way Juan Pedro handles money. Who-knows-what could be referring to his drinking at the ice-house, or it could possibly be referring to her suspicion that he's been having an affair.

Cléofilas is a woman who has been let down by the world, her conflict being with the socitey she lives in. She had high hopes for her new life in America with her husband, imagining a romantic life like in a telenovela. After some time, however, she realizes that her new life came with all of the heartbreak but none of the passion, and she knows she can't live that way any longer. Going home she has a realization: she can start again, and she can do it for herself. She can be happy, because she can be her own woman.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Is Cléofilas' returning home a story of freedom, or one where she simply changes hands from one man to another?

So, apparently, he is Joaquin.

Oh boy.

Well, for the inaugural post on this blog of mine, I have for your consideration the poem “I Am Joaquin” by the Chicano poet Rodolfo Corky Gonzalez (a name which I must say is fantastic). This poem seems to be one about conflicting cultural identities. However, before we get into this, a personal note:

Picking up this poem, I find myself with the American white person's dilemma; namely, how do I relate to this? I suppose I do have attachments to the culture I have been raised in (all hail the mighty television and his apostles the internet and consumerism) but it feels more like a preference out of comfort than any kind of pride. As for any kind of ancient heritage, I hardly know what I am (Swedish? Norwegian? I heard that I have some distant grandmother or other who was Comanche) and even if I did it has nothing to do with my life. And here I am with this poem that's just dripping with cultural identity, and I've got to figure out what to do with it. I guess I'll manage something.

So, this guy Rodolfo has a lot to say about all the different people in his complicated heritage. A good portion of it is spent naming off all of the guys who contributed in a great way to the Méjicano/Español/Latino/Chicano/whatever-he-has-decided-he-identifies-with culture, but at the same time claiming them as himself.

This certainly informed me of a lot about the culture of Mexico, but I did have a small connection to the allusions to Mexican migrant workers because I remember at least learning about this subject in high school. To be honest I was glad when I saw this mentioned in the poem, because it was something that I knew SOMETHING about. Pretty much everything else historical that was mentioned isn't really taught in the Washington state public school system.

Even so, I did find that this poem had some really great and descriptive imagery. Lines like “The altars of Moctezuma/I stained bloody red.” and “dead on the battlefield or on the barbed wire of social strife.” struck me as very visceral, so even if I couldn't relate as easily to the motivation behind the work I could still connect to it on an emotional level.

As I think about this poem, though, I can't help but come back to that idea of strong cultural identity. It's not just identity though, is it? Because I do have that, surely. What I'm having trouble connecting to is that concept of pride. Having a culture and loving it. Knowing years of history and feeling connected to it. I look back at the American Revolution and I don't feel connected to it. I know the impact that it has had on my country, but it doesn't feel significant to me on a personal level. Gonzales talks about hundreds of years worth of everything that happened in Mexico, and is that everything. He is the Aztecs. He is Cortes. He talks about “MY OWN PEOPLE” with such conviction, and I don't even know who I would call my own people.

But really... that's okay. It seems kind of empowering to connect to hundreds of years of people, but I'm fine not having that. Plus, it seems like it would be a bad idea to just decide to have that all of a sudden.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Why would Gonzales relate to the coming together of the Spanish and Indigenous cultures, but not the coming together of the Mexican and “Anglo” cultures?