Breathing, In Dust (review)

California's San Joaquin Valley, the richest farming region in the history of the world, is one of that state's principle economic engines. The San Joaquin also hides deeper poverty than any other region of the state—seven of California's ten poorest communities can be found there. All of them have predominately Latino populations, and all are dominated by what is called agribusiness, which is not to be confused with agriculture. It uses people as it uses water and sunlight.

California has rarely appeared less golden than in Breathing, In Dust, a collection of loosely related stories by Tim Z. Hernandez. He employs gritty naturalism to introduce readers to one of those communities, the mythical (and dismal) Catela, its residents, their dreams, their despairs, and, of course, its setting. "In summer, a sixty-eight day stretch of triple digits melts the air into wet ghosts that wriggle up from hardpan and pavement and disappear on the horizon," writes Hernandez in what is likely the finest description of heat waves ever written (xii).

Little wonder then that "everything here is built close to the ground," as Hernandez writes (xiii). He also has a character named Tlaloc early in the book say of a pig, "that son of a bitch will eat anything you put in front of him. Even its own children" (3). By the time a reader finishes this volume, it will be clear that the Valley itself does the same thing.

This is a good book about a gritty reality: Latinos being weaned from a culture of hope to a culture of poverty and hopelessness, with all the frustration and anger that implies. Hernandez's writing is consistently sharp in Breathing, In Dust. A curtain sags "like an old pair of testicles" (106); one character wishes "to fold myself into my pocket and get lost in the lint" (108); another describes how, from behind, a woman's "bare ass fell flat and looked like a rumpled quesadilla when she walked" (116).

Little—perhaps nothing—is romanticized in these tales. At the memorial for Cesar Chavez, for instance, one character states, "I remember what my grandfather said, during one of our afternoons. I had asked him what he thought about the farm workers' movement. 'I don't know,' he replied, rubbing his forehead, 'I was too busy working'" (67).

I have only one minor complaint about this collection: Hernandez ads an epilogue that seems unnecessary. Yet, when the author presents passages like "And so we took grandma home with us in an urn that Mom and I had made from a coffee can. No holy water. No blessings from the church. It was the same can she used to gather her cigarette ashes in," all is forgiven (17). As a fellow San Joaquin Valley native, I recommend Breathing, In Dust without reservation.