Rudolfo Anaya's New Mexico

Life

Rudolfo Anaya was born to Martín and Rafaelita Mares Anaya on October 30, 1937 in Pastura, New Mexico. His family later migrated to Santa Rosa and finally in 1952, Albuquerque where he attended Albuquerque High School. From 1956-1958, Anaya attended Albuquerque's Browning Business School with the intention of becoming a CPA before deciding to pursue a liberal arts career that fostered his creativity. A student in the English Department at the University of New Mexico, he earned a B.A. in 1963 and an M.A. in 1968. In 1972 he earned a second M.A. in guidance and counseling, also from the University of New Mexico. Anaya married Patricia Lawless in 1966. After teaching in Albuquerque public schools from 1963-1970, he became director of counseling at the University of Albuquerque. He began teaching in the English Department at the University of New Mexico in 1974 where he remained until he retired and was made Professor Emeritus in 1993. Now a widow, he currently resides in Santa Fe.

 

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Work

Anaya achieved national recognition and an international reputation as a prominent author of Chicano literature. Through his works he has raised awareness for Chicano and indigenous issues while fostering the culture of the U.S. Southwest. Since the publication of his first and best known novel, Bless Me, Última in 1972, he has produced a large body of work including: Heart of Aztlán, Tortuga, Alburquerque, Zia Summer, Rio Grande Fall, Shaman Winter, The Legend of La Llorona, Randy Lopez Goes Home, The Sorrows of Young Alfonso and short stories, plays, poetry, essays, and anthologies.

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Rudolfo Anaya has received many awards and honors. These include the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities Lifetime Achievement in the Humanities Award, the Mexican Medal of Friendship, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from the University of Albuquerque, and the Governor's Award for Literature. In 2002, Anaya was awarded the National Medal of Arts for his "exceptional contribution to contemporary American literature that has brought national recognition to the traditions of the Chicano people, and for his efforts to promote Hispanic writers."

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Select Themes

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Place

Anaya's characters and plot are directly impacted and often determined by their location. The majority of his fiction is set in New Mexico with other narratives taking place in Mexico and South America. However, Anaya's New Mexico is a site of magical realism, where La Llorona waits by the water for unsuspecting children, the Golden Carp offers a syncretic religion, a curandera can undo el mal de ojo, and the chupacabra preys on cattle. New Mexico is a character in and of itself in Anaya's works, and not just because it is the author's home state. It is the heart of Aztlan, a land that has maintained its Native American and Hispanic traditions and values in spite of encroaching Americanizaiton. Anaya's writing highlights these traditions and in doing so, shows a unique regional identity that is heavily formed through its landscapes: the mountains, the llano, and the barrio.

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Food

A subtle theme in Anaya's works is the use of food. This began as early as Bless Me, Ultima when Antonio's classmates laugh at him and tease him the first day of school when he reveals that he has green chile and a tortilla for lunch, rather than a sandwich. Both green chile and tortillas, along with beans, continue to reappar in Anaya's fiction. In fact, in Lord of the Dawn, Anaya traces the origins of corn (used to make tortillas), a narrative that he revitalizes in the children's book The First Tortilla. In short, these foods become Anaya's comfort foods in his novels - they console characters who find theselves in nerve-wracking situations and provide a sense of home. Indeed, food often serves as an identity marker for Anaya to reinforce a continuity between New Mexican and indigenous cultures. This takes on a deeper meaning when one considers that another definition for the term "assimilation" is "the process of absorbing food." Consumption, and what one consumes in Anaya's texts can therefore be a manner of cultural resistance.

   

Encroaching Anglicization

From sandwiches to railroads to English to Protestantism, Anaya expresses a preoccupation with how a historically Hispanic area like New Mexico has been transformed by Anglicization. History legitimates his concerns: in the past Spanish land deeds have been ignored and English-only movements have infiltrated school curricula. However, it should be pointed out that Anaya's attitude towards Anglicization is far from militant and that this perspective has left his reception within the Chicano movement as tenuous at times. With that being said, his primary concern is maintaining New Mexican traditions rather than overturning Anglo values and thus readers find Spanish blended into his texts and cultural elements such as santos, farolitos, posole, and matanzas abound as markers of New Mexican identity.  

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Indigenous Consciousness

A common feature of Chicano writing from the 1960s -1980s is an interest in establishing an indigenous past as a means for Chicanos to connect with their indigenous ancestors. Often times this takes form through glorification. Anaya's works express this interest: Lord of the Dawn, The Legend of La Llorona, and the short stories "Message from the Inca" and "The Village that the Gods Painted Yellow" demonstrate Anaya's attempt to revitalize indigenous narratives. But he does not stop there. Elements such as the Golden Carp in Bless Me, Ultima, Jerry's presence and tragic death in Tortuga, and non-linear time in Randy Lopez Goes Home provide insight into alternative cultural practices and beliefs influenced by indigenous consciousness. In doing so, Anaya posits that Chicanos must go beyond a glorification of the indigenous past and embrace their heritage in the present, thus finding continuity between the past and the present

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Adapting to Harsh Environments

The arrival of the Spaniards in The Legend of La Llorona, the unforgiving llano that does not produce in Bless me, Ultima and Heart of Aztlán, the urban barrio of Heart of Aztlán and Alburquerque, the rehabilitation ward at the foot of Tortuga mountain in Tortuga, and even the purgatory called Agua Bendita in Randy Lopez Goes Home, Anaya's stories are often set in harsh environments that the portagonist must adapt to and overcome. Usually this is done with the help of an elder, such as a curandera, a writer, or a poet who can bestow upon the protagonist wisdom and alternative belief systems. It should be noted that this sort of help can also come from the protagonist's peers, as is the case with Salomon in Tortuga.

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Brotherhood

In Alburquerque, Anaya describes his main protagonist Abrán as the new Chicano - the progeny of a Mexican father and a "gringa" mother who will bridge the two worlds. One of his best friends revives his indigenous cultural heritage. In Randy Lopez Goes Home, the protagonist has spent years living among and writing about "gringos." In Heart of Aztlán, the workers are united by the Aztlan narrative.  Anaya's works tend to explore ways of connecting cultures in a peaceful manner. Much to the chagrin of literary critics who seek a more militant Anaya, the author instead relies on cultural fusion and notions of brotherhood to unite different sectors of society.