In relation to Sandra Cisneros’ “Bien Pretty”, your first step must be to learn about Spanglish, the language that is a mixture of Spanish and English. You can read a bit about it – and even listen to some examples – here.
You can also visit the author’s official website, by clicking here.
Cisneros’ most sucessful novel is The House on Mango Street, which is available at the library, for those who would like to know her works better.
Even though this post is being published a little bit in advance, I’ll go on letting you free to make your comments without guiding lines – probably till the end of the term…
Wow! I really really loved this!
It´s big but it´s worth it!
It´s been a long time since I didn´t read such beautiful descriptions, without being, you know, over, excessive, cheesy…
Of course the author is a woman, otherwise it wouldn´t be so deep and passionate (at least for us, women).
I guess the author was extremely skillfull in expressing passion, love and the void caused by heartbreaking.
It could be Flavio, it could be any other guy. When we love, it doesn´t matter names, faces, bodies, money… And that is what the narrator tells us in the beginning.
Lupe is not Mexican, but is so involved and interest in the Mexican culture that she even resents the fact she is not Mexican. I guess the way expressed by the author to demonstrate Mexican and American cultures combined, mixed and transformed into something hybrid, is really beautiful. It is the best way to promote this mixture without beign “panfletário”, because she does that through a love story, in which every bit has the same weigh, and one is not better than the other.
The American culture tends to minimize and ridicularize these aspects of Mexican culture, and the author was able to do exactly the opposite, showing how ordinary and daily things can be bien pretty…
I am crazy? Where these 2 SS here at the same time? Where they supposed to be together? Or is it my computer that isn’t showing the last updates?
I’m going nuts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I’m really nuts…it’s “were theysupposed to be together?”
Juliana, remember I said I was going to start posting in advance? That’s it. The short stories are not together in the syllabus – “Bien Pretty” is today’s story.
But don’t panic if new posts start popping up, Ok? I intend to finish posting the whole course by Saturday or Monday at most. You can go on following the course program, no problem – but I have speed up my part and start preparing to go home at the end of next week…
Mel, Lupe is not Mexican but she is a Chicana, that is, she is of Mexican descent. Being Mexican and American at the same time, she has a hard time proving her worth to each culture. That’s why she somehow “resents” not being Mexican by birth – it would be easier to have an identity.
I also liked this ss very much. It is really beautiful! I agree with Mel
when she says that the author express love skilfuly.
Lupe really ressents the fact that she is not mexican.
I also agree when Mel says that the author shows how ordinary things
can be “Bien Pretty”.
There is, in this ss, a mixter of cultures. Neither mexican nor american
culture is superior.
I also agree with Mel that this SS is a love story very well done, the first line of it exposes what really happens when we are in love: “He wasn’t pretty unless you were in love with him.” No matter how is the appereance of the person if you love him. Love has no explanation, sometimes you idealize your future partner but then when you fall in love he is different from your previous thoughts.
The way that beauty is treated is an important theme, it doesn’t deal with fisical apereance, as said above, the author uses the word ‘pretty’ with another meaning: “(…) pretty man (…) Late or early, sooner or late, you’re just asking for it. Know what I mean?”. In my opinion, ‘pretty’ here is not refering to a good-looking man, it refers to the ideal person everybody is looking for when become adult.
Another element that is clear in the text is the mixture of culture, as the girls mentioned. The presence of lots of words in Spanish and the “Chicano atmosphere” of the story shows that American and Spanish culture complement each other.
Well, i’m not saying that I loved it… It was quite long I got the point some pages before it was over… I liked, but it was tiresome…
I liked the cockroaches thing, the fact that Flavio “saved” her from them…huahauau I’ve been there and know that it’s almost impossible not to love someone that saves you from these bugs…hauhauauha
It also got me thinking about word origin… rs… if in spanish the name is CUCARACHAS and in english COCKROACHES, how come in portuguese it’s BARATA? it makes no sense to me…
OK, but apart of this nonsense I believe I have some useful thing to comment…
Lupe was kite interesting protagonist for me. As you know, i hate when the leading woman dies/commits suicide/is depressed and never recovers/or else. Lupe was different, i liked her beacuse she really went for it, she went for life. Not happy? Heartbroken? Let’s change, let’s move, let’s start over. She wanted to be what she wished for her soap-opera heroines to be: a woman that makes things happen, real! the very wish for being so already made her it!
Lupe is struggling to find out who she is, what type of woman she is, her cultural identidy, her feminine identity…
As person born from mexican in american soil, who was she? Mexican, definitely? American, definitely? What does it mean to be Chicana? To whom she should she thank for being it? Should she be thankful at all? Which culture should she embrasse?
She wishes she was spanish because of Flavio. What if she was in love for a tipical american guy? would she wish she was not chicana? who knows?
I liked the way she talks about solitude, about being heartbroken, about love and how ir makes your live wonderful and miserable. She’s very sincere, very direct, very Alanis Morissette, “botando o dedo na ferida”, saying the things that we know how they are but no one mentions them…
And the way the writers mix spanish and english was lovely. It as not fartached, nor forced, but very natural. the reading was long, but the rythm of it was nice, smoothed by the spanish language, I don’t know exactly how to explain the feeling, but the mix was wonderful…
that’s what I have, so far… the rest is up to my friends…
The story focuses Lupe’s desire to live a life of passion and intensity.
She moves from California to Texas to escape contact with a farmer lover who has left her for another woman.
In spite of past pain, Lupe jumps into an affair with a Mexican national, Flavio, who returns Mexico when he is called on to take up his role as father to the seven sons he has produced by two women in Mexico.
Lupe suffers betrayal and rejection and plunge into grief and anger.
As a postmodern heroine, Lupe uses her freedom to choose the vision she wants rather than submit to one constructed by others.
I liked this story because it has a romantic climate in the air. Flavio said: “I don’t know anything about this Tao business, but I believe love is always eternal. Even if eternity is only five minutes.” (p. 150). How romantic and how realistic!
The mixture of cultures is something strong in this SS. I liked the way the author do this because is natural as Juzinha said and also I could exercise my Spanish or Spanglish?
This SS remembered me El Pachuco in ‘Zoot Suit’ and how American culture influenced the Chicanos.
Flavio is sure who he is, he says: “…I don’t have to dress in a sarape and sombrero to be Mexican, I know who I am.” (p. 151) but dressing himself as an American it shows how American culture influenced them just like El Pachuco in ‘Zoot Suit’.
Lupe is native citizen of the U.S. but strongly connected to their Mexican ancestors and ways of life. She wants to reach a term in both cultures: American and Mexican and in this SS she also wants to understand what love between men and women means.
Lupe was looking for her identity because she was Chicana who did not know about Mexican culture but it is interesting how she became interested in it and how she was self-determinated afer Flavio’s departure. I think she had grown up as a person and she is aware of women’s role as we can see in this passage:
“… I want them to be women who make things happen, not women who things happen to. Not loves that are tormentosos. Not men powerful and passionate versus women either volatile and evil, or sweet and resigned. But women. Real women. The ones I’ve loved all my life. … Those women. The ones I’ve known everywhere except on TV, in books and magazines. Las girlfriends. Las comadres. Our mamas and tías. Passionate and powerful, tender and volatile, brave. And, above all, fierce.” (p.161)
I mean “after Flavio’s departure”
This SS reminded me of brazilian people in the united states. they seem to think that to be brazilian you have to like É o Tchan, soccer and samba, love globo and think soap operas are soooooooooo cool. When i was living there i had this big conflict like: oh my god, am i americanized because i don’t think é o tchan is the greatest thing on earth?
only when i came back to brasil did i notice how being brazilian had nothing to do with what musica you listened to, what sport you liked or even if you liked samba. it’s about being able to like whatever you want, not being afraid of the world and letting go.
I think it’s funny how the girl from this SS thinks that Mexico is some closed up concept, i guess its easier for her to think like that so she could incorporate those elements. She completely fails to acknowledge that mexico is part of the world and the aztecs are not the only thing mexican. and that latin american culture is somewhat of a whole, argentinian tango is quite popuylar in mexico. Mexico was a colony of Spain and then later non-officially of the USA.
she understands mexico intellectually whuile flavio is mexico. She is like those people that think brazil is full of monkeys and indians!
This text illustrates “Filhos de culturas divorciadas: uma introdução à literatura chicana” perfectly. There is the language factor, the geography issue, the grape boycott, Texas, and the identity crisis, identification with their Indian past.
There are several examples from the text to exemplify each one of these points. “I wanted to be Mexican at that moment but it was true. I was not Mexican.” (p. 151-152) Chicanos are stuck in a void between two cultures and they struggle to build their own identity, which is not an easy thing to do, especially if you are treated as a social issue in the country you reside. Like the Native Americans, they are treated as they are invaders, unwelcome visitors. It is interesting to trace a historical parallel with the way Mexican descendents are portrayed by the media (as lazy, criminals, gang members). Everything has been twisted (nothing new about that).
The main reason the protagonist fell in love with Flavio is because he brought a sense of home to her. The language, the culture, his values were something that she was craving for, especially after a unsuccessful relationship with a man named Eddie who was now in the company of a blond girl. “He didn’t even have the decency to pick a woman of color.” (p. 142) She didn’t feel so misplaced when she was with Flavio. In spite of his occasional harsh words towards her, like in the dance episode, he was still the closest she got from a sense of belonging.
Is this really a “short” story? Woah, I was a bit tired of reading it… =P
But it is worthy to see the representation of American and Chicanos culture, the mix of them, and this is also reflected in the way the writer… er… “writes” the story (sorry for that). I agree with Ju, it is in a very natural way and every story that I read about Chicanos’ culture somewhat reminds me of the play “Zoot Suit”.
What is interesting in “Bien Pretty” is to see that Lupe tries to find a term between the two cultures, and love plays a role of importance on that, as she might see in Flavio something that could be familiar and bring her to her origins.
Although I think this sort of comment doesn’t add anything relevant to our discussion here, I have to agree with you guys about the story being tiresomely long and dense, but, as Mel said, it’s worth it.
In general, what I see in this short story is a woman searching for identity, and something really worthy to consider here is the concept of identity we have in mind. I think the identity the girl from this story is looking for goes beyond a national one, she is looking for all the elements that make a person feel “at home”. She doesn’t feel at home because she is NOT treated as if she were… I don’t think it’s a question of thinking that Mexico is a closed up world as Erica said, I think it’s a question of appealing to a culture that would possibly make her feel this sensation of “being home”. If “Americans” insist that Chicanos are not “Americans”, I think it is quite likely for them to appeal to Mexican culture as some sort of “safe ground”. This nostalgic feeling wouldn’t exist if they lived in an equalitarian environment, in which Americans would not discriminate them. And in this case it is not a question of being homesick, because she was born in America. We are dealing with a more complex thing, a cultural homesickness perhaps.
Cheers.
hello friends, just wanted to say that I liked this one too. The culture mix is cool though I thought it was a little hard to understand because of the spanish words that I didnt know. But interesting. I liked and hated the guy, Flavio. But the author didnt seem to hate him to much. He was more of her tool to show what happens, what happens when people are hurt. What happens. SOmetimes we give up, but others (depending on background, enviroment and genetics of course) open up to a new world. Beauty becomes more vibrant and with your pain, joy is so much more desirable. I thought the story was interesting because I thought her mind really opened up after he left. I find that pain is one of our best teachers and I think she learned some lessons.She compared making love to Flavio and her old boyfriend. Flavioo was just better because she loved him, his skin and his relatively ugly features just faded away. Its easy to just settle for someone attractive whos seems to have everything together or has money, but to love someone who´s ugly, who has nothing, who is just a person, a regular person. To be affected by every word of theirs, by every action so deeply. To be out of their favor is a feeling that of which you would prefer death, And to be comforted by them is like being in heaven. Love is powerful, it dosent leave you without having changed you. Heartbreat and pain can be so beautiful, its all depends on veiw point.
I just loved this SS!!!!!!It`s so beautiful….Although it`s long for a SHORT story, I read it entirely. It`s really worth it.
I agree with Rachel when she said that there is no superior culture since neither mexicans nor americans are the best. I thought the mixture between English and Spanish in the SS very interesting!
Besides, as Cátia and Jean I the SS reminded me of Zoot Suit too.
I agree that this reading was tedious, because it is too longer, but was interesting, because it is a love story. It discuss emotion in a profound way, and shows how common things can be “Bien Pretty”, both with love and sorrowful.
It is also about a mixer of both Mexican and American cultures, one complementing each other, showing Lupe’s fascination with the Mexican one throughout the words in Spanish.
Lupe is a broken-hearted woman that makes things happens despite the painful after the deception of being rejected, because she is a determinate woman. She desires to establish who she is and her cultural identity like a Spanish woman.
I liked very much what Elisa said: “Heartbreak and pain can be so beautiful, it all depends on view point.” It certainly is very deep and proper…
I liked very much the mixture of Spanish and English languages. This mixture represents something bigger that is related to the character Lupe, that is Chicana.
Different from other feminine characters in other short stories we have read, Lupe is a woman that is not thinking about suicide and she is not sad. She tries to deal with the situations as they are presented to her in the best way; always doing her best to see the positive side of things, even of simple things that can be bien pretty, as Mel, Rachel and others said.
I liked Sus comments about Lupes attitude towards the vision she chose: As a postmodern heroine, Lupe uses her freedom to choose the vision she wants rather than submit to one constructed by others. She did not submit to anyone, she built her own ideas, independently.
Finally, we can say that Lupe was looking for her real identity: it was difficult for her to be Chicana since being Chicana represented being part of two cultures: American and Mexican. It was hard for her to define her identity because she lived in a mixture of these two cultures.
I liked very much the mixture of Spanish and English languages. This mixture represents something bigger that is related to the character Lupe, that is Chicana.
Different from other feminine characters in other short stories we have read, Lupe is a woman that is not thinking about suicide and she is not sad. She tries to deal with the situations as they are presented to her in the best way; always doing her best to see the positive side of things, even of simple things that can be bien pretty, as Mel, Rachel and others said.
I liked Su’s comments about Lupe’s attitude towards the vision she chose: “As a postmodern heroine, Lupe uses her freedom to choose the vision she wants rather than submit to one constructed by others.” She did not submit to anyone, she “built” her own ideas, independently.
Finally, we can say that Lupe was looking for her real identity: it was difficult for her to be Chicana since being Chicana represented being part of two cultures: American and Mexican. It was hard for her to define her identity because she lived in a mixture of these two cultures.
This SS is very interesting because it shows in a certain way, what we see and live in Brazil: a mixture of different cultures, peoples, ideology, goals…very, very interesting
“Throughout Latino fiction, the characters search for a form of self expression, a language that will “bear the burden” of their hybrid, cultural identity” I Think that it is exactly what happens in the story with the characters!!
I love this spanglish stuff!!! It reminds me a little of zoot suit and we can see this spanglish culture in Rage Against the Machine, I know, I know I’m traveling a lot but If you notice the vocal guy(Zack de LaRocha) doesn’t speak exactly English.
I’m mentioning this to create a link from “Bien Pretty” to pop nowadays ‘couse if it’s pop it’s still concerning identities.
The idea culture is superior to any differences among people and nations is one of the key realities the SS intends to convey. Love is also stated as something superior no matter cultural, language, racial diffrences.
This story, like happened to Kate, also made me remember the Chicano movement, portrayed in “Zoot Suit”. United States, in my opinion, is each day becoming the empire of no one. Also, the United States, as Said denouces was founded over the idea of empire whose destiny was to expand more and more, at the same time it expands, it loses control of itself.
The Spanglish in the text is a very efficient tool to convey the cultural exchange idea. There is the mention of Latin tapes, although the Texas is the place in the occasion – “all my Latin tapes – Rubén Blades, Astor Piazzolla, Gispsy Kings…”
The universe of the characters is clearly a hybrid one. They didn’t abandon their identity at all, as if this was possible. They established consciously or not a bridge connecting Mexican and American culture.
In fact, that’s the bright side of globalization, you don’t lose values, knowledge, points of view, you just improve and gain more; that’s the good point. I’ve never listened about someone who lived or traveled abroad or even who speaks foreign languages having the idea of losing something, unless there is bad use of this contact.
Bien!
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