Mexican American Literature: A Portable Anthology ed. by Dagoberto Gilb, Ricardo Angel Gilb (review)

The publication of this engaging literary collection coincides with the ongoing struggle in Arizona to overturn legislation enacted by the state legislature in 2010 to eliminate Mexican American studies programs from public schools. Supporters of the legislation argue that it is necessary to ban classes in public schools that advocate the overthrow of the US government, urge ethnic solidarity, breed ethnic resentment, or treat students as members of a group rather than as individuals. Opponents of the legislation, including this reviewer, contend that the ban on ethnic studies curriculum is a thinly veiled attempt at cultural homogenization by conservative forces dedicated to erasing Latino culture and history.

Many Chicano writers, artists, and academics challenge this assimilation effort by acknowledging and exposing the legacy of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s. This movement propelled Chicano youth toward politicization and education, which in turn drove increasing numbers into graduate study, professions, and university faculty membership. Out of this push came a flurry of writing in various disciplines, particularly history and literature, leading to the development and establishment of sorely needed Chicano studies programs in universities and the hiring of Chicano faculty. Mexican American Literature: A Portable Anthology, edited by Dagoberto Gilb, a professor of Latino Studies at the University of Houston-Victoria and the executive director of Centro Victoria: Center for Mexican American Literature and Culture, and his son, Ricardo Angel Gilb, a writer, give tribute to the dynamic legacy left by those early writers and their literary descendants.

The diverse anthology should appeal to high school and college students as well as those interested in the written experience of the Chicanos in the United States. Fifty selections represent poetry, plays, and fiction, in a variety of genres: journalism, historical narrative, memoirs, and editorial cartoons. Ricardo Angel Gilb introduces each piece, which is especially helpful for those unfamiliar with Chicano literature. Writings taken from an immense sea of literature, spanning decades and centuries, were selected because they “stood out” based on their popularity (4). These fifty examples are but a drop in that sea. One can only imagine how difficult the selection process must have been. Significantly, some of the selections included in the anthology had previously been banned.

Banned writers in Mexican American Literature: A Portable Anthology, include Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, and Luis Rodríguez, icons of Chicano storytelling. One puzzling thing for this reviewer, who identifies herself as Chicana, is the use of the label Mexican American in the anthology title. Dagoberto Gilb explains in the introduction that the label was more in the interest of “simplicity” as the pieces represent the larger Mexican American population versus the varied Latino or Hispanic populations in the United States. As such, “MexAm is a neutral shorthand” and much clearer than the use of Chicano (4).

It is unclear how using the Chicano label would detract from the anthology or cause confusion. One could argue that readers, especially those attracted to this genre of literature, would be familiar with the term Chicano. Coming from the perspective that this genre of literature is one of resistance to overt attempts at cultural assimilation, the use of the term Mexican American seems to be counterintuitive. Regardless, the anthology gives space to authors and ideas that keep Chicano culture alive. Notwithstanding the attempts by the state of Arizona to silence these voices in the public school system, Mexican American Literature: A Portable Anthology provides a forum for those voices that might otherwise be silenced, overlooked, or simply forgotten.