This document provides a summary and analysis of Chicano culture and literature. It discusses how Chicano culture emerged along the US-Mexico border as a hybrid of Mexican and American influences. Chicanos often feel torn between these two cultures and struggle to find acceptance from either side. The development of Chicano identity and literature is influenced by experiences with prejudice and a desire to establish cultural pride and community. Two novels, Bless Me, Ultima and Chicano, explore these themes through young protagonists navigating cultural conflicts, particularly around language use. The analysis argues that Chicano culture continues to emerge and define itself through asserting its own identity separate from Anglo and Mexican influences.

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Brittney Cannon
14 December 2014
Mexican-American Lit
Professor Colon
Is Chicano to You Chicano to Me?
In the scheme of global cultural history, Chicano culture is a relatively young and
emergent faction of the American population. Similarly, the study of such an adolescent culture
can only be infantile in nature. Thus, when assessing the prevalence of university research in the
field, “all programs have the unique characteristic of being new” (Rochin 886). Chicano studies
have proliferated in the past six years, “in part as an outgrowth of an older tradition of writings
on the Mexican American or Spanish-speaking, or to be more limiting, Spanish borderlands”
(Gómez-Quiñones and Arroyo 155). The causes for the delayed study of such a prevalent aspect
of American culture can be further attributed to the broad and diverse nature of the term
“Chicano.” It has come to refer to the culture that developed in the Spanish Borderlands and has
slowly spread upwards and outwards. Chicanos live in a cultural gray area where they are forced
to create a hybrid culture because they do not exclusively belonging in one or another. Such
individuals cannot relate entirely to the Mexican culture but are often shunned by American
culture. However, even that term is broad in its application: American culture. The life of a
Southern Californian is vastly different from the life of a resident in rural, small town Texas, and
yet both embody “American Culture.” Chicano culture is heavily influenced by this variance, as
the Borderlands extend from the west coast junction of Mexico and California to as far as the
southeastern tip of Texas. It would be American hubris to assume that such a stretch of Mexican
land does not have just as diverse a spectrum of culture. A comfortable grasp of this point is

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pivotal in assessing the cultural implications in Chicano texts, as “writing and reading always
take place within cultural contexts: they are produced by the ideology of the societies in which
they occur” (McCormick, Waller, and Flower 84). Through an understanding of the elements of
the Borderlands and a comparative analysis of Bless Me, Ultima and Chicano, it is evident that
the Chicano culture is not a single, easily identified set of values and influences, but rather a
fluidly shifting cacophony of various discordant identities that has resulted as an attempt to find
harmony. The differences in the establishment of protagonists’ character between the two novels
is heavily influenced by their surroundings and their attempt to establish an identity in their
respective communities.
As definitive as immigration conflicts make the border between the United States appear,
there is a broad strip surrounding the arbitrary line in which the birth of Chicano culture took
place. In this thick strip of land, there is a great deal of influence from Mexican culture and a
strong population of Mexican-American citizens. These inhabitants are in a paradoxical location
both linguistically and in the scope of their identification. They are torn between pride for their
familial heritage and a desire to speak English and succeed in school while being accepted by
their Anglo American classmates, who ostracize them for their accents and are prejudiced toward
those who are less fluent or comfortable with English. In her text on growing up in the Spanish
Borderlands, Gloria Anzaldúa includes two anecdotes illustrating this rift in her culture: In the
first, she is confronted by a school teacher for speaking Spanish in class and is told, “If you want
to be American, speak ‘American.’ If you don’t like it, go back to Mexico where you belong”
(75). Moments later, she introduces the second instance: “Cultural traitor, you’re speaking the
oppressor’s language by speaking English, you’re ruining the Spanish Language” (77). As
Chicano’s come of age, they inevitably encounter similar situations in which they are never

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completely satisfying the expectations of their peers, whether Anglo American or those with
Mexican blood. While language issues seem to be inherently central to the conflicts that arise
between interacting cultures because of its affect on the ability to communicate, it also carries
less apparent implications because “the choice of language and the use to which language is put
is central to a people’s definition of themselves in relation to their natural and social
environment, indeed in relation to the entire universe” (Thiong’o 4). Beyond the lifelong
commitment to a primary language physically representing one’s dominant culture in the
person’s life, bilingual Chicanos assessing which language to speak in everyday situations is an
emotional choice as the decision is in response to cultural pressures and stereotypes. A student
may choose to speak Spanish in the halls at school in order to attract peers with similar
experiences with prejudice and shared values from their Hispanic culture. Conversely, if that
same individual were to be at a store and surrounded by predominantly English-speaking
Americans, they could choose to speak in English to avoid the assumption that he or she does not
know how to speak English. Each decision carries, often in small doses, an approval or
disapproval of either language, fostering a duality in the individual that is not always an easy
balance. Cultural conflicts are not the only forces hindering the acculturation of Mexican and
American culture, though, as some understand it to be the attempted perpetuation of “Anglo
dominance over society in the Southwest” which in turn “relegates the majority of Mexicanos to
a subordinate status and exploited them as a part of the working class and as a colonized people”
(Gómez-Quiñones and Arroyo 176). Such an assumption is based on the concept that Anglo
Americans are implementing internal colonialism in order to maintain an imperial status over
Mexican-Americans. Based on this interpretation of the power dynamic, “Chicano nationalism
is a decolonization process and a movement toward more effective pluralism within United

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States society” (177). According to this theory, the continued development of Chicano culture is
not simply the establishment of a hybrid culture but the decolonization of a people. The
assessment of which aspects of each culture influence the development of Chicano ideologies is
characteristic of decolonization, which is identified “as a term signifying changes in intellectual
approaches” (Mongia 2). While viewing Chicano literature as post-colonial when a large portion
of the subordinated population are native to the United States is overextending the range of Post-
Colonialism, the Anglo reactions to a growing Chicano culture utilizes various tools with which
imperialists maintained an elevated status. The most prevalent of these tools is the recognition
and rejection of alterity, or “othering” (Macey 305). Through the establishment of alterity,
“colonial administrators recognized that the most effective means of quashing rebellion against
foreign rule was to assimilate young minds into the prevailing order, to confer upon them the
urgent necessity of identifying with…social and cultural authority” (Nealon and Gireoux 158).
Thus, by maintaining the perception of elevated status and superior culture, Anglo Americans
maintain dominance through the Chicano desire to assimilate into the Anglo culture. Ardent
attempts at maintaining dominance necessitate the expansion of Chicano culture, as individuals
who are excluded by both groups of people will seek to define themselves and create community.
It is at this unharmonious convergence point that Chicanismo is created in reaction to this lack of
a solid identity, which can only be honed and established through time, mutual- and self-respect,
and community.
Antonio’s pursuit of a cultural identity in Bless Me, Ultima shares common themes and
episodes with the various generations that attempt to establish a niche in Southern California
throughout Chicano: experiences and challenges that unite the Chicano community despite
opposing geographic influences. Most notably, Chicanos throughout all areas of the Spanish

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Borderlands will experience instantaneous judgment if an accent is detected by non-Spanish
speaking peers. Antonio is faced with such insecurity on his first day of school, when his
inability to understand English quickly diffuses his excitement and deflates his enthusiasm when
his teacher introduces him to his class: “She took me to the front of the room and spoke to the
other boys and girls. She pointed at me but I did not understand her. Then the other boys and
girls laughed and pointed at me. I did not feel so good. Thereafter I kept away from the groups
as much as I could and worked alone” (Anaya 61). Tony is embarrassed and left feeling
ostracized, which, even when caused by obvious children, exacerbates the cultural divide
between the white, English speaking groups and the Hispanic youth, who are thusly conditioned
to expect racially-based rejection. Conversely, the white children glean from this interaction that
there are no repercussions on their end for disrespectful behavior toward the Chicano children.
A more adult variation of linguistic pressure takes place in Chicano when Julio Salazar seeks to
do business with the Johnny Rojas, a Hispanic bookkeeper that Julio wants to buy used crates
from: “‘Be with you in a minute,’ he said to Julio. His English was perfect to the point of an
American slang inflection. It occurred to Julio that he had never heard one of his people use that
phrase. He stood awkwardly” (Vasquez 124). Years older than Tony at this point, Julio has
already been similarly conditioned to view the ability to speak English as an asset and the
presence of a Mexican accent as a hindrance. As a result, encountering a Chicano who can
effortlessly mask his accent intimidates and impresses Julio, so influencing him that he sets a
goal to become as accomplished and distinguished as Johnny. The apparent insignificance of
such moments fosters a complacence in the Chicano characters, “planting serious doubts about
the moral rightness of struggle,” especially when the controlling social structures are dominated
by white Americans. With indirect oppression and ubiquity of the English language in loci of

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power, “possibilities of triumph or victory are seen as remote, ridiculous dreams” (Thing’o 3).
Native language, because of its potential to be a poignantly nostalgic and comforting aspect of
one’s heritage, is used as a tool by prejudice in order to prevent successful assimilation of
Mexican-Americans into mainstream American culture, a struggle familiar to Chicanos all along
the Spanish Borderlands.
“What a sin it is for a boy to grow into a man,” laments Antonio’s mother following the
violent death of Lupito as she mourns the loss of innocence her son will inevitably endure
(Anaya 33). Throughout the novel Tony realizes what a sin it truly is; his awareness of the
conflicting influences surrounding him expands, leaving him disillusioned to the torturous
uncertainty and doubt that Manhood entails. The difference in setting between Chicano and
Bless Me, Ultima can be simplified to rural and urban City America. Bless Me, Ultima takes
place in the rural town of Guadalupe, New Mexico: a state rich with Native American culture
and influence as well as a strong Chicano presence. Many villages in New Mexico with a strong
Mexican heritage were built in a simple, traditional format, that “includes a central plaza with a
Catholic church and bandstand, a rectangular grid of streets, garden plots, an encircling common,
and the continuing use of acequias” (a form of irrigation) “and long lots (narrow agricultural
fields)” (Wright 551). The rural towns similar to Guadalupe maintained a great deal of
traditional Mexican values; the village layout facilitating devotion to the Catholic faith
embedded into Chicanos from birth. However, Antonio’s exploration “is not a quaint historical
sketch of rural folkways, but rather a dialectical exploration of the contradictions between
lifestyles and cultures” (Lamadrid 496). Catholicism dominates the spirituality of Mexican-
Americans as “eighty percent of the Mexican Americans in the U.S. are Catholic” (Lujan and
Campbell 183). Tony’s Chicano struggle is largely spiritually based, having been brought up

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with the Church having central role in his life and urged by his mother throughout his entire
childhood to pursue the priesthood. He looks forward to his increased participation as he
approaches the age at which he can take his first communion and give his first confession. Prior
to these much-anticipated milestones, Tony is introduced to Ultima. Having been raised in the
Mexican tradition to respect his elder’s, he witnesses her healing mysticism with reverence and
fear. Ultima’s—or La Grande’s—practices greatly resemble the hybrid religion that emerged
throughout the colonization of areas with a prominent Native American influence. The Spanish
conquerers imposed their Catholic beliefs upon the locals during the 16th century, but not without
challenges:
Frustrated by the tendency of the Mexican Indians to return to their religious
customs and traditions, Spanish friars resorted to integrating folk religious
customs into Catholic religious rituals. The resultant Mexican belief system is a
blend of indigenous and European elements. Manifestations of this belief system
include: limpias, use of herbs, burning of incense, pilgrimages, offering prayers
and making promises to worship specific saints in exchange for health miracles.
(Lujan and Campbell 184)
In order to remove the curse from Tony’s Uncle Lucas, Ultima performs a number of indigenous
customs, burning “purifying incense” and taking “many herbs and roots from her black bag and
mixed them into the warm oily water” (Anaya 101). Tony witnesses his uncle’s curing at the
insistence of Ultima and is left to reconcile what he sees with what he holds as truth: “Would the
magic of Ultima be stronger than all the powers of the saints and the Holy Mother Church?”
(101). Before he is able to reflect on this, Tony endures another spiritual test when his friend
Cico’s brother enables him to set his eyes upon the Golden Carp, a supposed deity introduced to

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the children by Jasón’s Indian, a local Native American. Antonio is enamored with the prophecy
of the Golden Carp’s return, but is ashamed of his partiality to an alternative to Catholicism.
Despite his glimmer of doubt, his eagerness toward catechism lessons is unwavering; he even
listens to the confessions of his peers during a particularly aggressive playful interaction. Tony’s
first communion marks the culmination of his emergence into the sin of manhood. Frantic after
swallowing the communion, Tony demands of his nearest friend, “Did you feel anything?” (233).
In a matter of a moment’s swallow, his excitement to become closer to God and experience the
significance behind each traditions monumentally shifts into a profound, unsettling doubt in the
establishment and its deity as a whole. This disappointment at the lack of a direct line to God
coming out of communion is simultaneous to the witnessing the Golden Carp and the clear
results of Ultima’s power in person. The novel comes to a close shortly following Ultima’s
death, leaving Antonio no spiritual guide to aid in his deep-seeded unrest and indecision. The
boy at introduction of La Grande shares very little resemblance to the young man that witnesses
her death. He cannot identify nor reconcile the cultural influences that caused his confusion, and
is ravaged of his confident childhood identity by the competing ideologies of the Native
American and the Golden Carp, the hybrid spiritualism of Ultima, and the unsatisfying Catholic
faith. Such influences, while exemplifying the Chicano struggle to form an identity despite
outside pressures and conflicting cultures, are specific to Tony’s geographic location. Small
town New Mexico allows for the perpetuation of Native American culture as well as the
continued loyalty to traditional Mexican values. While Tony’s father does have a strong desire
to head west to California, the pursuit of wealth and a driving desire for economic establishment
is not nearly as present in Guadalupe as in other areas in America. The sprawling nature of this
farm-based town allows for a greater ease in community building between Chicanos, and

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allowing them to keep a distance from white American scrutiny and heavy pressures to
Americanize themselves. Antonio best embodies his Chicano identity through his “strategic
movements among distinct racial or ethnic groups and strategic reconfigurations of cultural
repertoires” in order to embrace them as his own (Pérez-Torres 155-156). Despite the unrest
Tony endures because of his attachment to the disagreeing spiritual beliefs, it is what makes him
a pioneer in the establishment of Chicano culture.
Conversely, the setting of Chicano shifts, but ultimately settles around Los Angeles,
California, a city with a population surpassing that of the entire country of Canada. In Chicano,
the transition into the title culture is evident as the generations develop, piece by piece
abandoning the traditional values of Mexican culture for the apathy toward sentimental aspects
and entrepreneurial persistence that is necessary to establish oneself in the urban destination the
final generation settles in. The patriarch of the family begins in a small town in Mexico, where
he decides to settle down with a new wife following a train wreck which he assumes his first
wife believes killed him. Despite the duplicitous nature of his second beginning, Hector
Sandoval embodies family-based values in his children, determining without hesitation to
relocate his family “to los Estados Unidos. Where there will be no more of all that to make us
suffer,” after his son escapes being recruited by the federales to fight in the Mexican Revolution
(Vasquez 32). Chicanismo is introduced to the family with this initial decision, beginning their
epic journey of attempted assimilation. Chicano immediately diverges from the spiritual basis of
conflict in Bless Me, Ultima; the Sandoval family is mangled by the pursuit of economic stability
and temptation of wanton debauchery in the unfamiliar and populous region of Southern
California. Hector’s first endeavor into finding work made short work of his veil of hope for
prosperity, when he witnesses a crowd of men in various states of emaciation:

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Hector saw a small, slight man who looked almost feverish. He was trying to slip
in at the front. Someone roughly shoved him back. ‘Please,’ the little man
pleaded. ‘My family, they are actually starving. I’ve got to work soon.’ He
addressed one nice-looking young man. ‘Just let me stand here near the front.’
‘Sure,’ the man said, ‘just so you don’t stand in front of me,’ and he firmly
pushed the little man back, and yet another man said, ‘Don’t get in front of me. I
want work, too. (48)
Such a blatant disregard for camaraderie is a foreign evil to Hector, who settled into familial
familiarity with the people of Trainwreck. In this hopeless coastal town the Sandovals begin
their Californian experience in, Neftali clings most stringently to the values-based culture of their
homeland. While his father squanders his pay on his developing alcoholism, whores in the local
bars, and gambling, Neftali is dreaming of “a good, clean girl to marry” (55). This fabricated
girl is the perfected model of Marianismo, which favors women who “are semidivine, morally
superior, [and] spiritually strong beings who manifest these attributes in personal abnegation,
humility, and sacrifice” (Ehlers 3). The foundation of Marianismo is rooted in the Catholic
image of the Virgin Mary, but manifests itself in Neftali’s mind in response to his distaste for the
promiscuous habits demonstrated by the townspeople. The irony is lost on Neftali when he is
ultimately convinced to visit a brothel only to find that his sisters have been working as
prostitutes all along in order compensate for their father’s profligate spending of the family’s
income. Neftali passes judgment and censure on his sisters for the shame of not saving their
bodies for marriage and disregards the fact that he visited their place of work in order to do just
that. The nameless coastal town’s dismantling of the Sandoval family concludes thoroughly,
when Hector dies from his excessive drinking and the matriarch of the family reveals that she

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had sent for Eduardo, an old friend from Trainwreck, and that she had been waiting until the
dissolution of her marriage to start a new life with Eduardo. With no family to anchor Neftali to
the land, he traverses to Irwindale, where he finds his vision of perfection in Alicia, with whom
he starts his own family instilling in them the importance of family and respect for its hierarchy.
This idealistic dream is reminiscent of the “greater emphasis on collectivism and family
interdependence in Latin America” (Landale and Oropesa 384). Having spent her entire life with
the influence of Southern Californian culture, Neftali’s daughter Angelina makes her debut as the
first Chicana in the family, rebelling against Neftali’s oppressive concept of the proper role for
women. Tiring of the strict values and expectations of her father, Angie defies him and leaves
the family for East Los Angeles, determined to establish herself as a member of the dominant
culture. While her headstrong and independent behavior as well as progressive reasoning is
reflective of a woman who has adapted to the city she establishes her home, and subsequent
business, in, her relationship with Julio reveals the weak sense of self that is symptomatic of
Chicana’s search for identification. It does not take a long before Julio’s lies and manipulation
entrap Angelina in an abusive relationship, as he preys on her subservient nature as being raised
to the standards of Marianismo. Angelina’s search for her cultural identity manifests through the
relationship, culminating in her decision to reclaim her independence and repeated denunciation
of the role of submissive wife. Upon his release from jail following his arrest for domestically
assaulting her, Angie tells him, “Okay, lover boy…You knocked me around for the last time.
Got that straight? This bring us to number two. You toe the mark at the taco stand, or it’s out on
your fat ear. And I’ll make sure the gringo judge knows you’re not gainfully employed”
(Vasquez 149). This outburst is characteristic of the establishment of an independent female
developing in Chicano culture. As the generations continue to progress, the Hispanic influence

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decreases incrementally; from Angelina and her siblings, the Sandoval descendants live their
entire lives in Southern California as well as receiving continuously less traditional Mexican
influences through their family, as fewer and fewer members actually lived in their native land.
Despite the lack of traditional Hispanic values, the younger generations are still forced into the
ambiguity of Chicano culture. To illustrate, upon Mariana asking if David would ever introduce
her to his family, he realizes “that Mariana was no more Mexican than Martha was European.
Actually, he saw, she had no culture. Her home, her parents, were barren of culture in the
national sense…If there was a culture here, it was the culture of being a subculture” (306).
While Caucasian and wealthy David acknowledges that the cultural implications of the racial
divide are absent in Mariana, the mere fact of her now distant heritage classifies her as a
Chicana. Mariana, a second generation native to Los Angeles, typifies the resultant
hybridization from not belonging to the Mexican community but being rejected from the white
community regardless. A victim of circumstance, when she becomes pregnant with David’s
child, she confesses that her parents feel that “it’s kind of a custom to believe, that when a girl
gets pregnant it’s only her fault. Every man has the right to try to seduce every girl he can. And
he should be responsible for a child only if it’s his wife who has a baby” (361). David reacts to
the news with a defensive fervor, expressing his relief that she told him in time for an abortion,
addressing the subject as though it were the natural and singular response. His entitlement
extends to Mariana asking to spend the night after agreeing to an abortion: “Mentally he framed
the sentence he’d almost spoken. I still have a little decency left! Now why would he say a
thing like that? How would sleeping with her be indecent, and what made him think he’d lost
some decency” (383). David understands the illogic behind his prejudices toward Mariana, but
his pride prohibits him from disregarding the social stigmas and the repercussions his reputation

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would suffer should he treat her as though she had no Hispanic blood in her at all. The expectant
mother is held singularly responsible for her pregnancy by her family because she failed to live
up to the caste predefined for her by the virtue of Marianismo in the lingering traditional
Hispanic dynamic of her family, while simultaneously being urged to have the evidence of her
foray into white society eradicated by the white father of her child. Her family’s heavy appraisal
of her situation echoes the popular belief among Mexican-American woman that such situations
are a “punishment from God or as a purposeful, God-sent event” (Lujan and Campbell 186). The
Anglo pressure to remove damning associations with Chicanos ultimately reaps the reward, as
Mariana passes away from the despicably low quality of the illegal abortion she received, and
David is free of all evidence that he welcomed a Chicana into his elite circle: “David realized he
was the last one to linger near Mariana’s grave. He started to walk slowly away and then
glanced at his watch and walked faster. If he hurried he could still make it to graduation
rehearsal on time” (Vasquez 437). The forces involved in the acculturation of the Sandoval
family from Mexican to Chicano are remote and unimaginable in the world of Antonio Marez.
The pressures to assimilate into mainstream American culture are just as present, if not more so,
but the attempt to reconcile the conflicting aspects of the convergent cultures is no desire of the
family. What began as the pursuit of security for Neftali was corrupted by the widespread
poverty, which welcomed the depravity and instant gratification into the lives of the newly
Mexican-Americans. Transitioning from the farm-town on the coast to urban influences of Los
Angeles, “a city with an hour-glass class profile polarized between the predominantly white
affluent and the predominantly nonwhite disadvantaged,” inspired entrepreneurship and
independence in the first generation Californians, who made their best efforts in order to achieve
economic stability and establish a home in the city (Willard 811). The final children of this

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Chicano family were raised in the diversity of the city, which allowed for Mariana to be exposed
to the David and his elitist white family and to become involved with him, despite his being
outside of her racial sect. Rather than striving for a hybridization of their cultural identities, the
Sandovals overwhelmingly and ineffectively cast off one culture for the other. Beginning with
Hector’s fall from grace, most subsequent members persevere to overcome their Hispanic
stereotype, excepting Neftali who disdains the self-indulgent Southern Californian society he
lives in and holds fast to traditionalist values his parents failed to implement in his own coming
of age.
These two conflicting displays of Chicanismo exemplify the diversity that exists among
the Chicano population. As limitless as cultural variations are between differing geographic
areas within the United States is equally as incalculable as the variants in Chicano cultures.
What unites the opposing Mexican-American hybridization is the common challenge of
establishing oneself despite the exclusive white American disposition toward immigrants.
Contrasting cultures come together discordantly, and Chicanos are still in the process of forging
a cultural identity for their expanding portion of American culture.

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Works Cited:
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Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books,
2012. Print.
Ehlers, Tracy Bachrach. “Debunking Marianismo: Economic Vulnerability and Survival
Strategies among Guatemalan Wives.” Ethnology 30.1 (1991): 1-16.
Gómez-Quiñones, Juan and Luis Leobardo Arroyo. “On the State of Chicano History:
Observations on Its Development, Interpretations, and Theory, 1970-1974.” The Western
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Lamadrid, Enrique R. “Myth as the Cognitive Process of Popular Culture in Rudolfo Anaya’s
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of Sociology 33.1 (2007): 381-405.
Lujan, Josefina and Howard B. Campbell. “The Role of Religion on the Health Practices of
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