Luis Leal: An Auto/Biography

Chapter Six: Aztlán—Part Two

Chapter Six Aztlán— Part Two Leal (center) with Antonia Hernández (left) and Blandina Cárdenas at Aztec Eagle Award presentation at Mexico City, 1991. Ron Arias MG: Let’s talk about Ron Arias, whose novel, The Road to Tamazunchale, appeared first in 1975. He didn’t publish with Quinto Sol, so he was not part of that group. LL: He first published a few short stories. One of his first he entered into the University of California Irvine Chicano literary contest. It won first prize for fiction. I think that this was also in 1975. But he also published some stories with Revista Chicano-Riqueña. His novel, The Road to Tamazunchale, was published in 1975 by a small press in Reno. At first it was almost impossible to get a copy of the book. A second edition was then published by another small press, Pajarito Publications in Albuquerque, in 1978, and it became more accessible. A third edition was later published in 1987 by Bilingual Press in Tempe. And more recently a fourth edition has appeared, published by Doubleday. Which edition did you first read? The first. Has the book changed over the years with these different editions? No, I don’t think so. What did you think about The Road to Tamazunchale? Because it’s very different from some of the early Chicano novels. It’s more experimental. My first reaction was that here you had a novel that was greatly influenced by the new Latin American novel. The others we’ve talked about had some of this influence, but not as much as Arias’s novel. For example, there is a section of the book that is almost a direct translation from a section of Garcı́a Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. Garcı́a Márquez and magical realism are important influences on Arias. The theme of death in Tamazunchale, through the old man, Fausto, also reveals the influence of Juan Rulfo’s Pedro 138 luis leal Páramo. Of course, there are other influences as well. The main character, Fausto, obviously comes from Goethe’s Faust. The other Chicano novels, as we’ve mentioned, are also very regional in character. In Tamazunchale, the setting is Los Angeles, but really the story could have taken place anywhere in the Southwest. Yes. The novel has certain local references in Los Angeles, like Elyssian Park, but then there are also references to llamas, which, of course, are animals found in Perú. So the novel has these influences from both sides of the border. What do you think Arias is saying about the Chicano experience in this novel? Well, Arias was criticized for not presenting the Chicano experience like other novelists who used obvious Chicano themes and settings. Yet Arias clearly is also presenting a Chicano experience. All of his characters are Chicanos . It’s a Chicano world seen through the eyes of the novelist in close association with Latin American society more than North American society. I think that the Latin American references in the novel suggest that the Chicano experience is not a closed experience or not just a U.S. experience. The novel doesn’t have any artificial divisions, such as borders or countries. It goes back and forth from Los Angeles to Perú. It’s also interesting that Arias chose as his main protagonist an old man, Fausto. In the other Chicano novels, the main characters tend to be young boys, as in Rivera’s Tierra and Anaya’s Ultima. But here you have an old man. It’s as if Arias is saying that the Chicano experience is not just a youthful one, but has something to do as well with older people. I think someone else has written about old people in Chicano literature. But, you’re right, old people are not the usual central characters in Chicano literature, although many writers do include as secondary characters the abuelitos—the old people, the grandparents. In fact, the abuelitos are common characters. They are used to represent the older Mexican traditions, but they are never the main characters. However, in Arturo Islas’s The Rain God, Mama Chona, the grandmother, has a very important role. Do you think that Arias’s use of magical realism works? For example, he has Fausto’s dead wife reappearing to him. Yes. He uses it...