Transcript And the Earth Did Not Devour Him #1 (They’ve Got Something

…And the Earth Did Not Devour Him:
They’ve Got Something to Lose
Thanks to Feraco, SRHP
For the use of this
presentation
What’s In Store?
“Layered stories and sketches
portray a Mexican-American
migrant community.”
 Ramon Saldivar: “It’s a major
document of Chicano social
and literary history.”
 Twenty-seven stories,
including the two framing
stories (“The Lost Year” and
“Under the House”)

A Word from the Translator
There's a lot of beautiful poetry in
Tomás Rivera's novel, you'll find. You
know, even though it's a very harsh
experience that the book conveys -you know, pain, suffering, the sun
bearing down on the people as they're
working -- there are moments that are
refreshing, and inspiring, like little
fleeting swirls of beauty. Like, for
example, when [the child] goes out
into the silvery night. It is magical.
-Evangelina Vigil-Piñón
Another Word
From a literary point of view ... this is a
very, very sophisticated book. Not only is it
poetic, not only is the language poetic, but
also the devices of plot construction and
perspective are very, very highly literary
and belong to the new novel. They belong
to what people have assumed is the Latin
American boom, where the reader is
expected to construct the narrative. So
there are all kinds of clues in the book that
lead the reader to piece together who is
speaking at what time, what it means,
what are the relationships of the
characters, so this becomes somewhat of
an artistic literary puzzle.
- Nicolás Kanellos
Why Are We Reading This?

Why is And the Earth Did Not Devour Him a
good choice for high school students?
And the Earth Did Not Devour Him is a
great book to teach high school students
because at this point in the life of a young
person, he is trying to find out who he is.
There are all kinds of pressures, emotions,
and growing pains that teens try to make
sense of -- the protagonist has to piece
together his identity from bits and pieces
of overheard dialogue, from personal
experiences, from imaginings, from
stories that other people tell. It's really like
what happens in the real world as one may
never get the full story. - NK
Who Are We Reading
About?
The term “Chicano” – as in “Chicano
literature” – refers to Americans of
Mexican descent
 Rivera was born in Crystal City, TX, and
his parents were migrant workers
 “Many Mexicans and Chicanos provide
labor for farmers throughout the United
States, particularly in the West and
Midwest. The work is seasonal,
exhausting, and pays very low
wages…Many migrant workers still toil
under oppressive conditions similar to
those experienced by the [characters] in
Rivera's novel.”

-paraphrased from Annenberg
What Are We Reading
About?


…And the Earth Did Not
Devour Him is a
response to certain
realities of Chicano life
– and the result of them
as well
Rivera focuses
particularly closely on
the lives of Chicanos
serving as migrant
agricultural workers
during World War II and
through the 1960s
Bracero Program
Bracero program took place in 1942 –
shortly before the action in Rivera’s
novel “begins”
 The U.S. and Mexican governments
instituted a set of labor laws intended to
provide fair treatment for Mexican
nationals recruited to work in the U.S.
 These laborers were, in part, taking
the place of U.S. workers lost to World
Wars I and II
 The program didn’t protect the
workers fully, and they were often
exploited.

- paraphrased from Annenberg
Biography vs. Fiction
“Some try to see in this book a biography
of Tomás Rivera. Well, [like] any author,
Tomás Rivera included incidents from his
life, characters from his life are woven,
but in no way was this a biography…He
knew that he was constructing something
that was in the mainstream of avantgarde literature at the time that he was
writing. And he saw the world that way. So
it was in not an autobiography. The main
character is not Tomás but an amalgam of
people. It's a broad interpretation of the
struggles of migrant workers, Mexican
Americans, other ethnic groups that need
to find themselves in a minority culture. It
has epic dimensions…”
Biography vs. Fiction II
“Many people have called this the
Chicano Grapes of Wrath. The same
kinds of historical background that tell
us about the dustbowl as John
Steinbeck documented through The
Grapes of Wrath, is here. We have that
background. And, in fact, not only do
we have that background historically,
we have it today. Because all of these
issues, and trends in immigration,
farm labor, and unionizing labor, and
poor schooling for migrant workers -and for poor kids ---these issues still
exist in this country.”
- Kanellos
The Beginning of a
Tradition
Rivera’s work is one of only a
few novels in print about
Chicanos in this country at the
time (late ‘60s/early ’70s)
 Rivera wasn’t even aware of
most of other writers’ works
when he was writing – or of a
tradition of Chicano extended
fictional writing

More Kanellos
Tomás Rivera wrote before the official
Chicano movement got underway which
historians and scholars place around
1965, at the time Cesar Chavez organized
farm workers in California, and began to
unionize them. Along with unionizing
came the birth of the El Teatro Campesino,
with Luis Valdez, who very much
developed a farm, popularizing a new
kind of literature that used the language
of the people. Its message was political as
well as the civil rights movement and
protests against Vietnam.
More Kanellos II
In the late 1960s, some professors from the
University of California, Berkeley, began
publishing a very, very important
magazine called El Grito, and published
the first academically respected
anthology of Chicano literature called El
Espejo, The Mirror. Then they founded
their publishing house, called El Quinto
Sol. So in 1970, academics started giving
an award for the best Chicano literature,
one award per year, and the first award
given was to And the Earth Did Not Devour
Him, by Tomás Rivera.
Breaking New Ground



Rivera was writing in a vacuum – without
a novelistic or fictional tradition with
which to orient himself
 While he drew on the traditions
Kanellos mentioned, it’s important to
remember that Rivera was breaking
new ground here
The result is something largely new – and
something incredibly influential
Rivera helped bring his narrative style
into the mainstream with And the Earth
Did Not Devour Him
Wordplay



One of the aspects of Rivera’s
work that people struggle with at
first is the narrative style
The narrative isn’t expository
(based on detailed linear and
realistic explanations)
It’s based more on sensory
impressions and subjective
descriptions
Snapshots



Within this narrative framework,
conventions that we’ve grown
accustomed to – linear chronological
development of a plot, for example –
fall away
This means the reader gets snapshots
of dialogue and thoughts / perceptions
rather than a traditional “story”
This narrative style, similar to streamof-consciousness writing, is called
fragmentation.
What Does That All Mean?


However, this isn’t to say that
Rivera abandons plot and
convention entirely; every story
with a title has a definite plot and
narrative style
Rivera even experiments with
different voices throughout the
novel

The scene at the end where the voices
from his stories blend together is
amazing
We Speak in Different Voices
Rivera wrote about the people – la gente
 The book is clearly influenced by the
oral tradition – the practice of passing
along knowledge and entertainment
through direct human interaction, face
to face
 This concentration on multiple voices
helps to connect the novel to the
traditions we mentioned earlier
 It also emphasizes that the book is
about a community (and communal
experience) rather than a traditional
protagonist/antagonist pairing

The Space Between
 The
larger story itself is
framed by the opening and
closing sections, in which
we are aware of a young
boy who has lost everything
 What could he represent?
An Emerging Awareness

In many ways, he represents the
developing Chicano/migrant community –
lacking self-awareness, struggling to
understand itself through experience,
unaware of its power


This is a community in search of its identity; it
needs an idea of what that is
The book is about that struggle to
understand; if the boy can begin to
remember what he has forgotten,
perhaps the community can come
together in solidarity – and protect one
another in a world that abuses them
A Communal History
The tales and vignettes between
the framing stories take place in
seemingly unrelated places and
unspecified points in time
 These stories allegorically depict
twelve months’ (one year’s) worth
of collective migrant experiences
– and the novel serves as a
communal history, covering the
lives, loves, and losses of oftforgotten men and women

Deep Concerns
The novel is deeply concerned with
exploitation, injustice, and
oppression, whether it be economic,
social, or spiritual in nature
 As a result, “And the Earth Did Not
Devour Him” also functions as a
memorial to, and reconstitution of,
the “forgotten history of a people’s
oppression and struggles” – and as
an eruption of America’s suppressed
political unconscious

Studying Politics


As alluded to before, the novel was
written during the organization of
the United Farm Movement in
California and the Chicano Civil
Rights Movement
Allegorical reference to the farm
workers’ movement, coming out
of the fields and shadows as
invisible labor, demanding their
place in the sun
Losing, Hoping, Wishing,
Waiting
In many ways, the collection of
stories in this book are about
gaining, re-gaining, or losing
something – whether it’s
identity, faith, or hope
 Remember, the child must go
from being lost to being found
in order for the community to
connect with itself

The Kid - Again
The narrator in “The Lost
Year” is stripped of subject
and identity, born into a
world of absence and loss, as
Saldivar puts it
 He must attempt to rediscover
his name, and to recover the
events that compose un ano
perdido, the lost year

Searching for Something
He begins the novel with no
sense of name or place; he
calls out and tries to listen
without realizing that he is
the one trying to speak
 He is not even sure whether he
is awake or dreaming –
unsure of who he is or what he
is experiencing

The Big Question
What is the Chicano/migrant
experience? This novel attempts to
help define it
 If the child can remember, he – and
the community – can gain selfawareness
 As a result, we as readers are asked
to examine the relationship
between individuality and
collectivity


Shades of The Awakening!
Community-Building
Exercises

What’s fascinating about this
community is the real way in which
solidarity can help protect people – can
help them survive – in a world that
refuses to care for or help them



Again, compare this to The Awakening
This community is forming because
the people need it to form
They’re in a position where they’ve
already lost just about everything, and
every day is simply a struggle to avoid
losing the rest
Losing Battle
So much is lost over the course of And the
Earth Did Not Devour Him – lives, innocence,
faith – that the book can feel almost
oppressive at times
 That’s somewhat the point – there isn’t really
an escape for the migrant workers and
families, at least not one provided by the
outside world
 If they want to change their lives, change their
fates, they need to come together and agitate
for change
 Only through the help of others can we help to
save ourselves – and only through our
connections to others, to the world, can we
become truly self-aware

“The Lost Year” in a
Nutshell

Now that we understand
Rivera’s intentions, the story
doesn’t seem so confusing
Boy = Chicano migrant community
 Year = Sense of shared experiences
and heritage
 Call/Name = Community searching
for its identity and purpose; first
steps towards self-awareness


Heritage and unity will free us
Understanding the Stories
That Follow

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As Rivera wrote . . . And the Earth Did Not Devour
Him (1967–1968), other Chicano writers and artists
were finding expression for their ideas and
opinions
Production of art and literature exploded into a
full-fledged movement (which, one could argue,
means that Rivera’s book accomplished its task)
The Chicano renaissance – El Movimiento –
questioned accepted truths and focused on civil
rights, labor struggles, and the Vietnam War
Chicano poets were among the first to gain
prominence in the movement because the verse
nature of their work allowed them to easily recite
their writing before groups of students and
workers (and they wrote bilingually in order to
reach a wide audience).
Rivera promoted Chicano authors and contributed
to the development of the new literary tradition.
Questioning Accepted
Truths

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
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One of the accepted truths Rivera chooses to
question – or at least examine – is the role of
religion in the migrant experience
Rivera posits that heritage and unity can free you –
but will faith simply convince you to accept your
bondage?
This is one of the controversial aspects of the novel,
as the characters experience a great deal of
religious turmoil
This is also one of the reasons that the “innocence”
theme is so important – Rivera shows the
crumbling of faith in the young as a response to a
cruel and unjust world
“In a book that's so small, so readable, and so
poetic, there are the many, many very deep,
philosophical, theological issues. And it's fun to
deal with them.” - NK
Questioning Accepted
Truths II


While faith is not placed in the best light
over the course of the book, Rivera seems
less interested in criticizing faith than in
studying the ramifications of its loss – and
what causes it to disappear
What he does seem to criticize – in keeping
with El Movemiento’s philosophies – is
blind acceptance or blind faith



After all, the movement is predicated on
questioning the things (and injustices) that we
have taken for granted, even unconsciously
If you understand the larger themes Rivera is
grappling with – as well as his larger ideological
concerns – it’s easier to understand why religion
plays the role it does early in this novel
Does the search for the truth set you free?
Alone, Together

I mentioned before that “Alone, Together”
referred to the idea that one can be
isolated in a crowd – that we can isolate
ourselves in any number of ways


How many ways can you do these things? How
many ways can you – do you – separate yourself
from the people and world around you?
The child in the second story is isolated by
his actions – and his knowledge



They separate him from his mother / family /
community
The truth – as he understands it – is exceptionally
lonely; anyone who has kept a secret knows why
“He’ll tell her when he grows up” – that’s a long
time to carry something like that
The Reverse Santa Claus

One of the noteworthy aspects of the story
is the way that the “natural order” is
reversed


Rather than keeping secrets from the young to
keep them in line – Santa! – the mother is blind to
the “truth,” and the child chooses not to tell her
He does this out of love – a deep, fiery love –
because he knows that she will continue “doing
her duty”



By drinking the water, he shoulders a burden –
and he continues to carry it for her


What would happen to her if she found out the
truth?
Think about Mother Teresa…
This means that, on some level, she has lost him
Who should we feel sad for – the boy and
his losses, or his mother and hers?
Theme-a-palooza

What were the themes we
named, and how can we
justify them?
It’s Conflict That Drives Us

Here’s an interesting question to follow
throughout the book: Conflict!


More specifically, what’s the source of the
conflicts in each story?
Identify what the conflicts are and
whether they are internal or external. If a
conflict is external, decide into which of
the three categories it falls:



Character vs. Character
Character vs. Society
Character vs. Self


Note: Some work for multiple categories!
If it is internal, determine what external
factors cause it.
The Children Couldn’t Wait
If the previous story was a deeply
intense internal conflict, how do we
grapple with what happens in this
story?
 Is this the result of an internal or
external conflict?
 Is this the result of a lack of an
internal conflict?
 Where is the anger? Where is the
justice?


The boss tries to kill himself after he’s
acquitted; he knows better, and his
actions indict society’s callousness
Two Sides of the Same Coin

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From the first two stories, Rivera is
contrasting several aspects of humanity –
some good, some bad, some in between
Is the child doing something wrong in the
vignette? What about TCCW?
Is the boss evil? How do we judge his
suicide attempt?
Start keeping track of the “good” and the
“bad” – and start monitoring what
separates the two in your eyes


The book contains many shades of grey
Consider these same questions for our next two
stories – the mother in “A Prayer” and the child
in “It’s That It Hurts”
Quick Write
Which characters are
sympathetic? Why do you
sympathize with them?
 How many stories have
worked for the themes you’ve
chosen? Have you found any
good material yet?

Quick Write II

Think about the ways in which the
boy’s fears are tied up with his
parents’ hopes for his future. How
do your hopes for the future
compare with your parents? Are
your plans similar to theirs? Are they
supportive? Demanding? Do you feel
more pressure to succeed because
they love you, because they’re your
family – or do you lose your drive
because of these expectations?