Hence "novel," or new! What new thing is the writer doing this time?

I've tried multiple times to read this novel, but this passage has me encouraged to try one more time.

Oh I like this. What a playful way to frame it, and as an invitation as well.

I have absolutely felt seduced by a writer before, within the first few lines of their prose. I have also been deeply turned off as well.

How unfortunate, then, that this reading did none of those. This person has read so many books and writers, seen so many paintings, heard so many songs, watched so many films, and experienced so much; how lucky they are for it. Their essay does indeed satisfactorily explore what art is, in as much as the dreary thoroughness of their citations makes it impossible to mistake them as anything but an expert of the most pedantic sort. Yet I am intellectually and emotionally drained from the experience of their dizzying references. For something with so much content, I recall nearly nothing of what was said.

The author seems desperate to show us how close they are to achieving this goal

Really didn't like this reading. It felt very much like the author was trucking out their goodreads checklist and showing how well read they were. It was over-stuffed with references to the point that the writer's voice was lost. All I got was the list of things they had read, seen, or studied, which, while impressive, was boring.

Hotly debated, this phrase, and I do not think it is "obvious." There are many leypeople who argue that contentless art is devoid of meaning, especially modern abstract art.

One of my favorite painters. He's famous for his painting The Garden of Earthly Delights which is best described as a chaotic and creative scene.

the brutality of life killing off a childhood fantasy

German for "Underman." Reference to the opposite of Neitzsche's "ubermensch," or "superman," which later became appropriated by the Nazis to specify a superior (white) race. A loaded word for sure.

very evocative language here

How tragic, that he rejects his heritage because it is too difficult to connect to. How much is lost with a lost language. It's the loss of an entire culture.

Assimilation is not the addition of a new culture to your own, it is the replacement of your self with something else.

these feelings are the most painful, most damaging to a child there can be

the liberation of words, of writing, is coming to grips with the wild existence that is life. this is a beautiful passage.

Tears at this

this spoke to me deeply, directly, and personally.

the mind is liberated by knowledge, and that liberation is joy

For someone who couldn't read at seventeen, this is beautiful and powerful prose.

heartbreaking

One of the first slaves of the Aztex empire sold to Cortes and the Spaniards, she became Cortes' consort and bore him one of the first Mestizo sons. She is a culturally complicated figure, as this memoir shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Malinche

Wow!

The Shadow-Beast, here described as a serpent, is the true nature of life, but it is suppressed.

Especially in this age of misinformation, the effects of social media, doom-scrolling, and rampant and deliberate lies being sold to us feels like taking a poison to our psyches.

I love this. The lie that the Shadow-Beast has to be suppressed, that it must be in the shadows at all, perhaps?

The Shadow-Beast

This is very interesting. This indicates that the Mexican culture is far, far more collectivist than other "Western" cultures, and the success of the individual is not celebrated over the success of the group. This would explain why there are so many clashes between the cultures; there's an inherent misunderstanding of values at play.

The Shadow-Beast persona returns, this time the dark counterpart of Man, the true reflection of Woman. She is proclaiming that her inner rebel is in fact the true nature of Woman.

Remember, she was the first in six generations to leave the valley, to escape the three destinies ahead of a woman.

The double standard from the last paragraph; the men set the rules, but only the women are expected to follow and perpetuate them.

She does not want to be complicit in the restrictions that her culture places on her gender by participating in the expected cultural expression of her gender. At war with her own gender.

Her perception of the self is reflected in the words she chooses for her rebel, a "Shadow-Beast," an animalistic, obfuscated identity. Something hidden and feral.

Discouraged from knowing herself, and enriching herself, for the sake of cultural conformity and performing to gender expectations.

Still gripping the ground with the toes of those flat feet.

keep the "teeth," the fight, of your ancestors in your speech and deeds

too true

one of the greatest tragedies of poverty is that it is much, much cheaper to eat poorly than it is to eat a healthy, balanced meal. Fast food and junk food is mass produced and sold at penny prices, but wholesome, natural ingredients are much more expensive. The health crisis of the poor is often a food crisis.

The parallels of these two stanzas show the tradition of patriarchal, conservative families in the river valley. The women do the physical work and upkeep of the family, the men are the spiritual authorities and heads of the home.

the contempt of racists expresses itself in the pettiest of ways. this is just disgusting to read.

A delightful way to remark on the difficulty and pains of pregnancy. It's not all glowing health and beauty, it's a heavy stone weight and sharp little ankles and feet that kick.

This made me laugh, which I think is the intention.

WOW WOW WOW! What power and exquisite language in this poem! Like a punch to the face with sweetness.

Absolutely unctuous poetry of language here. Stick-to-your-ribs decadent language and beauty of phrase.

The mother is like the ocean; the land is their mother. And yet, they must keep it pristine and safe from any signal that the people of that land were ever there, for fear of offending the rich tourists who claim the land like it is theirs.

The title of this poem and its contents, at first, baffled me. The title seems to be an obvious reference to the first three lines of the poem. It seems to say that the speaker is no patriot, but there are people, places, and pieces of the country that they love to the point of ultimate sacrifice. It is common to hear, in the US, "I love my country, but I hate the government." Perhaps this is a similar sentiment, "I hate my country, but, I love my people, my history, and the land." It's a beautiful little poem.

that fulminating passion and ambition is wasted on another man's dream. it must sit and smolder within him, spitting out smoke like a fire with no oxygen.

Comparing the welding of metal to passion, to intimacy, and the fire of the torch to the ambition and will to make something of your life. Very powerful.

this is another example of pinto poetry, the poetry of the imprisoned

this could be one reason why prisons see such recidivism, there is a pain to escaping it, survivor's guilt.

prison itself is the nationality of the imprisoned

Raúl Salinas, or his pen name raúlrsalinas, was a "pinto" (Prisoner) poet, who was born in San Antonio and was jailed for over a decade in prison for marijuana possession. He died in Austin, TX. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ra%C3%BAlrsalinas

I was unable to find the significance of this date.

chills from this line

This stanza is a profound tragedy to me. It takes the growing up tales of the poem thus far and gives the children their final fates; violence, imprisonment, death. This is the ugly, dumb fate of those artistic boys, those curious boys.

This is a hairstyle

This feels like a fond lament of endearment.

Deeply evocative, it brings to mind the hard wrinkled faces of people who labored in the sun their whole lives.

Alienation from the previous generations' political struggles, not knowing their fight, and being peaceful due to their struggle.

Her freedom expresses itself in the laughter, which is like water, the hollering woman creek.

The most common cause for death in women is men that they know.

the speaker feels utterly trapped, in prison

A common symptom of abusers is immediate remorse, and seeking consolation from their victims.

Again, I laughed. Seguin, the tinkle of money.

As someone who is very familiar with Seguin, this made me laugh out loud. It is far from a glamorous destination.

This is an all-too-common sentiment, that the more you suffer for someone, the more you love them. In truth, the person you love shares your suffering, and lessens it.

What an opening sentence! POW!

It feels like the speaker regrets the past, but the story so clearly romantically tells it. It's a contradiction, complicated and sad feelings about formative events, but also nostalgia for them as well.

The reconciliation is also destructive

Interesting to note, does he wish to be a butterfly?

Such a deeply intimate and sensual wording here.

This line implies to me that the mothers might be a couple, and they were hurt that their sons might have resented them for not having their fathers around.

Perhaps the speaker is feeling guilt for the kiss

This image of Mexico is so pervasive, I will admit growing up as an ignorant white boy, it was all I thought of the country as well. It really shows how ignorant and damaging those kinds of depictions are.

Even though he was packed with trauma from his father, in the end, he knew his father because he knew those traumas. They were how he knew this man, who was destructive and violent, but still a caretaker. Maybe even still a good man.

His mother had abandoned his dad as well. In this moment he feels connection to his father.

Another trauma from a broken rule. Little by little the speaker is accumulating traumas.

This took incredible bravery, the speaker had said before he didnt value violence and the capacity for violence as something good, but he stood up anyway.

This is the finality of grief; in the end, the person is no longer there, but the memory is an empty blank. You forget little by little, until it is gone.

He was deeply traumatized by the experience. He broke a rule, which was a basis of his relationship with his dad, and his dad had made good on his promise of violence.

The alienation from one's father because of the businesslike transaction-based format.

This shows the complicated relationship of abandonment trauma and the rescuer.

In contrast to his mother.

He is amused by this more than it means something to him. He asks his boy's name late, his birthday late. This is more like a badge than an identity to him.

Another example of how little he cares for his son.

The abandonment is complete, he has accepted his new identity, but he longs for the past with his mother, and his old identity. His assimilation begins.

This line was like a slap to my face. His mother didn't tell him the boy's name, and he didn't ask it until the second day. That's such a shocking moment to me.

This was his last supper with his mother. It was the best meal he'd ever had. That is heartbreaking.

Children often lash out to their parents like this, when they are hurt. They do not mean it, it comes from a place of wounded panic. The speaker is a child here, and his abandonment is hurting him, and frightening him.

The author has said this line before as well, about his own life.

The speaker feels like he is not a beautiful thing, not of quality, because of his father.

Spanish slang for gay, a slur. As a gay man, Sáenz identifying with this word from a young age is powerful.

I googled the author as I had not heard of him. I think it is remarkable that he came out as gay at 54, after many years married to a woman. It's also close to home that he got his MA in Creative Writing at UT El Paso; he's a local with experiences close to my own.

A bridge between generations, a bridge between the living and the dead, a bridge between Mexico and Texas, a bridge between the male and the female.

Reference to the border wall, and how it desecrates a sacred, wild land.

The author uses the ocean as a metaphor for grief.

The author again uses the ocean to refer to grief.

A haunting couplet of sentences. Poetic and beautiful. It reminds me that burials were often done in the fetal position before the advent of coffins, and how the faces would be shrouded, layered with cloth. It makes the deaths he carries in him feel ancient.

This writer is very fond of constructing sentences like these, where they string together verbs, nouns, or adjectives in rapid succession to convey a color palate of ideas rather than a single notion.

A very beautiful way to speak to the connection to the valley. He had never been there, but he knew the names of the birds and all their songs.

shivers!

Stream-of-consciousness writing like this suggests recollection, or recalling a memory and series of related memories immediately after. It gives a series of impressions about the speaker and the subject.

This is an obsessive kind of love. It borders on addiction. It seems selfless but the motivations are selfish, seeking to "do anything" to prevent being apart. I have felt this kind of wildly out of control love before, that hides itself as devotion. It is obsession.

Another nationalist rejection of assimiliation into other cultures, seeing it as "disappear"ing and "shame"ful.

I was very powerfully moved by this passage. What power in these words. The all-consuming guilt.

Spanish law had very specific classes depending on your race, Spaniard, Indian, or Mestizo. Different laws applied to the different races, but they were all given protection under the law. This was very different from the way the English and Americans treated natives. The Catholic Church, being an important political aspect of Spain, reinforced this legal status as well.

According to the Wikipedia article on Aztec legend, they were told where to settle where they saw an eagle perched on a cactus, eating a snake. I believe this is saying that the speaker's cultural identity, and his strength of his conviction for la Raza, is the new frontier on which the descendants of the Aztec civilization should settle. This nationalism is the new foundation of the birthright of the Aztecs.

I did not know this word, and looked it up to discover it was the name of the last Aztec Emperor. He surrendered his Empire to Cortés.

I think this is a call to Nationalism, which was key to the manifesto of El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán. When the speaker is driven to tears, feeling hatred for the society oppressing him, he retreats to the safety of his cultural identity, of la Raza.

The industrial revolution, which I am studying in another literature class, had an enormous impact on agrarian lifestyles, and was not felt in the mostly agrarian areas of the US-Mexico border until later than it was in Europe or the American Northeast. The industrial processing of cash crops introduced the economy of scale into farming, and small, subsistence farming class was slowly strangled out, leaving super rich planters and landowners and laborers in the wake. The "monstrous, technical industrial giant," is the destruction of small farmers in favor of sharecropping and tenant farming.

This is the quintessence of the immigrant experience into America, I feel. Having come a long way, only to wind up somewhere with no welcome for you, that will try to take your cultural identity from you or else punish you with economic want.

I believe this couplet is a direct reference to El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the manifesto of economic recovery and cultural pride. These lines feel like the "thesis statement" of the poem, because of their position before the "And now!" and at the end of the introduction where we learn the sorry state of the speaker.

Here is a dramatic reading of the whole poem, it is very compelling. https://youtu.be/qDsTELEAL3A