Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

are we there yet? testimonial literature 329
campesinos to get ahead. We will always be campesinos or day laborers unless
we get help in reaching the university. Here in the village we have never
had anything more than a primaria [grade school]. Since I can remember,
and long before that, if you wanted to go to secundaria you had to travel to
Tepoztlán. The majority of children go to Tepoztlán daily. It is much easier
now since we have a road and the bus picks them up right here in the center
of the village. Before we had to walk to el “15” in order to catch a bus [. . .].
The system is rotten. The rich always end up with the money in the end.
Where did all of the money go we paid to the school? Hilaria was just one
of several thousand students sent home when the doors opened. Tuition is
only a part of the total expense. School requires a lot of extras, like for the
celebrations. Chingaderas (slang expression meaning “to get screwed”) my
son calls them. And they are. The biggest expenses are not books and supplies,
like paper, but those things related to activities outside the classroom.
For example, I had to buy a uniform and other things for just one occasion;
it was a parade [. . .].
In the farmer’s market I feel very much at home and can make enough
money to survive. At Tres Marías I always feel like an alien even though
I have some friends there. But I earn enough money to allow me to make
special purchases without feeling guilty. My boys do not know it but I
am saving money for a television. I know that I should be spending it on
my teeth [. . .].
Discussion Questions
• Notice Celsa’s careful distinction between mejicanos and indigenas,
as well as between San Antonio and other towns. How does this
dialogue with the discourse of nationalism and, in particular, mestizaje?
Is she making essentialisms? Why would she feel the need to identify
such groups as signifi cantly different from each other? How does this
speak to national and mestizo identity?
• What is Tirado’s role in this book? Is he “more a conduit for her story
than a storyteller,” as he suggests?
• Even if Celsa wrote, organized, and published her own story, would
she still be outside of discourse? In other words, is it ever possible for an
author to escape his/her discursive “death”?
• In what ways does the genre of the testimonial at once challenge and
agree with previous authors’ representations of indigenous people?
• How might the text be different if its audience were the citizens of
Celsa’s community? Would that be a more “authentic” representation of
Celsa’s experience?