Spilling The Beans in Chicanolandia by Frederick Luis Aldama (review)

BOOK REVIEWS SPlLLING THE BEANS IN CHICANOLANDIA. B Y FREDERICK LUIS ALDAMA. AUSTIN: U TEXAS P, 2006, P. 294, $22.95. Frederick Luis Aldama’s Spilling the Beans in Clzicanolandia comprises serious and lively conversations with twenty-one well-known or upcoming “second wave” Chicano writers and artists who work in a variety of venues novel , short story, poetry, drama, documentary film, and comic book. The author targets the audience of Spilling the Beans in Cliicanolandia to those interested in “a follow-up to [Juan] Bruce Novoa’s collection of interviews with the first wave of Chicano/a artists (mainly writers)” (1-2). What is remarkable about Aldama’s book is his inclusion of all kinds of female and male Chicano personalities (regardless of their sexual preference). They range from novelists, poets and essayists to artists who work in film, theater and comic books. This wide range sets Aldama’s book apart from other collections. Moreover, the face-to-faceinterviews touch on the aesthetic and the sociopolitical as well as form and context (10). Before each interview is presented, Aldama writes a short biography of each author or artist (date and place of birth, schools attended, occupations, places of residence) and a brief, critical comment on their works. These life summaries show the diversity of backgrounds of Chicanos and how their resilientspiritshelped themovercome extremedifficulties-i.e.discrimination based on ethnicity or sexual preference, poverty, and exile-to become successful professionals. The questions posed by Aldama focus on several topics: sources of inspiration, themes of their works, choosing one genre over another, Chicano identity and sociopolitical concerns. Aldama exposes the cutthroat world of editorials, by underlining the barriers to publication encountered by many minority writers, Chicanos included. For example, Luis J. Rodriguez, best known for his Always Running/La Vida Loca:Gang Days in LA, started his own press, ”TiaChucha,” when his early poetry was rejected by several publishing houses. Family and community seemed to be the strongest influences for the Chicano authors or artists portrayed in SpiIIing the Beans. Lucha Corpi ” ... was especially attentive to her grandmother’s voice as she would recount stories to young Corpi (along with her eight siblings) of grand adventures and bygone eras” (95). And Pat Mora grew up “hearing the stories told by her grandmother, her mother, and her Aunt Lobo. This storytelling matrilineage planted the seeds that would later blossom as Mora found her voice as a poet, memoirist, and children’s book author” (153). Dagoberto Gilb‘s low socioeconomic background inspired his choice of themes and working-class protagonists. According to Gilb, ”I can’t avoid writing about working people-and I don’t know why I would. The workplace is central to my short stories. I don’t even think of it as a ’setting’; The Latin Americanist, Spring 2007 it’snot some self-consciousliterary choice, or whatever, I insert to make some intellectual point” (11).Similarly, Los Bros. Hernandez (Jaimeand Gilbert) started publishing their comic books in black-and-white because of economic needs: ”We couldn’t afford to do a color comic because it would have killed us. And we wouldn’t sell. That’s how it started out” (122). The prevalence of Chicano issues in the works of these writers and artists is intended to educate the general public, both Chicano and non-Chicano. Jaime Hernandez’s comics “aim to communicate a vision of the Chicano community so readers can see what it’s really all about” (124). Luis Alberto Urrea’s docu-journalistic writings in Across the Wire:Life and Hard Times on tlze Mexican Border and By the Lake of Sleeping Children:The Secret Life of the Mexican Border illustrate the life experiences and abject poverty of Mexican-USborder people: ”In writing Across the Wire,” the author confesses, I took on this task tohumanize people that no one-not Mexicans,Chicanos, or gringos-cared about: the garbage pickers in the Tijuana dump. It was a pretty hard task, but when you realize that they’re human beings with their own dreams and desires-and you don’t have to romanticize them, you don’t have to prettify them, just tell their human story -it’ll move...