Under the Texas Sun/El Sol de Texas (review)

Under the Texas Sun/El Sol de Texas is a part of the "Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage" project and is a bilingual edition of the short novel, including both the original novel in Spanish and the English translation under one cover. It was originally published in San Antonio in 1926 and dramatically captures the lives of Mexican immigrant laborers in Texas at the time. Espinoza himself is an interesting figure in history. In the introduction, John Pluecker explains that Ezpinoza was an exile from Mexico for six years because he was identified as an Huertista. He had worked in the Mexican educational system with a supporter of de la Huerta. Although he was exiled, he still "came and went freely to and from Mexico" and returned permanently to that country in 1930 (115). He was an ardent nationalist and a believer in the Mexican people. Pluecker points out that his novel is in contrast to, and in conversation with, the "México de afuera" ideology among other exiles, which advocated for the position that the culture among the immigrants was just as authentic a Mexican culture as that of the home country (117). For Espinoza, however, there could be no better outcome for an immigrant than to return to the home soil.

The novel itself is a story of two Mexican families, the Garcias and the Quijanos. Both come to Texas in search of a better life and escape from the chaos of post-revolutionary Mexico. Both end up in a social system that exploits their labor with little regard for their lives. The Quijanos eventually return to Mexico after the loss of the youngest son in the family, José, who is killed by a train while working on the traque. The Garcias, who find life in the United States better than Mexico, also suffer but eventually find some success in the oilfields around Houston. However, because Espinoza cannot acknowledge another good path beside the return to Mexico, their relative success leads to dissolution, degradation of their children, and desperation for the family patriarch. Under the Texas Sun advocates for one outcome, but it is not simple. The novel is accurate in its depictions of life in Texas for the immigrants as well as its description of the fear, anger, and loss of their ways of life in a violent and unstable Mexico. With these portrayals, and with its evocation of the tensions between those who stay and those who return, the novel forms a strong basis for study of the origins of the Chicano/a movement and a better understanding of the conflicts that would arise about identity within the movement.

I read, and enjoyed, this novel in both languages, and I greatly appreciate the work that Arte Público is doing in the recovery of Hispanic literary works. However, I found this edition sloppily edited in both languages; for instance, chapter 15, "El Camposanto," is rendered as "Hollowed Ground" rather than "Hallowed Ground." These mistakes make the edition seem cheap and careless rather than scholarly and historical.