Stavans, Ilan, ed. Wáchale! Poetry and Prose About Growing Up Latino in America. Chicago: Cricket Books, 2001. 160 pp.

Grade Range: 6-9

Genre: Poetry; short story

Summary and Critique

In his varied collection of works about the experiences of young people whose lives bridge two cultures, Stavans celebrates the richness of their Latino heritage. The works Stavans include reflect the ambiguity of the experiences they describe: some are written in English, others include a combination of English and Spanish that Stavans calls Spanglish; others are offered in one language or the other, with a translation usually provided. The topics are equally varied, with a memoir that recalls Kennedy's assassination ("Kennedy in the Barrio"), another of a boy's perspective on a quinceañera ("Sweet Fifteen"), a version of the La Llorona legend ("La Llorona"), a series of letters from a father to his daughter who left home to attend an Eastern university ("Dear Rosita"), and a"Latino" version of the classic poem "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" ("Twas the Night"). Stavans also provides a glossary of Spanish terms, including the title word "wáchale" (which means"look out!") and an extensive annotated bibliography of Latino literature appropriate for middle-school students.

Stavans' collection fills a need that exists in the curriculum today: appropriate works of literature reflecting the lives and culture of many of the students we teach. The quality of the pieces included is at times uneven (the parody of the Christmas poem, for example, would not qualify as quality literature by some standards), but the variety of genres will satisfy many interests. Also, it is not always clear who Stavans' target audience is—Anglo or Latino readers. Many Latino readers would find some of the works too superficial or familiar (like the description of the quinceañera) or as different from their own experiences as mainstream literature (the poem "The Jewish Cemetery in Guanabacoa" written by a Jewish Cuban immigrant).

Themes/Topics

Families

Generations

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture

Author/Illustrator/Editor Information

Ilan Stavans was born in Mexico in 1961 to an Eastern European Jewish family. In 1985, after studying in Spain, he moved to the United States and began writing while working on a doctorate from Columbia University. Currently he is a professor of Latin American and Latino Cultures at Amherst College. In 2003 Stavans published the controversial work Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, a socio-linguistic reference work which includes an essay examining the historical context of Spanglish, a lexicon of 4,500 words, and his Spanglish translation of the first chapter of Don Quijote de La Mancha.

For more information on Ilan Stavans:

http://www.webdelsol.com/istavans/ This site is identified as Stavans' home page, includes quotations from his work, and offers a link to his e-mail at Amherst.

Sokol, Neal. Ilan Stavans: Eight Conversations. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. This work traces Stavans' philosophical journey and looks at the impact of his Mexican, Jewish, and American heritages on his thinking and writing.

Media Connections

Movies/Documentaries

Birthwrite: Growing Up Hispanic (1988) This documentary examines the literary contributions of Latino writers and includes readings and dramatizations of selected works.

La Plaza: Luis Rodríguez: Conversations with Ilan Stavans (2001) Wáchale author Stavans explores the idea of becoming American with Latino writer and poet Luis Rodríguez, one of the authors in the anthology.

The Piñata Makers (1988) This film chronicles the lives of a sixty-year old couple who migrate from Mexico to Texas and bring their craft of making piñatas with them.

The Pool Party (1992) Based on his story by the same name and directed by Gary Soto, this film dramatizes the contrast in cultures that Latino children face daily.

Sweet 15 (1990) A Mexican American teenage girl decides to forego her quinceañera when she realizes that her father's quest for citizenship is much more important.

Yo Soy Chicano (1972) This film uses music, art, interviews, and historical re-creations to capture the Chicano experience from the pre-Columbian era through the Civil Rights activities of the 1960s and 1970s.

Television

George Lopez—any episode (family relationships in the Latino culture)

Music

Selena: Greatest Hits. EMI International, 2003. Selena represented the ideal of the Latina teen to many admirers and recorded in both English and Spanish.

Online Resources

http://www.hispanicsurf.com/education_surf.htm This site describes itself as an independent directory listing the best Hispanic/Latino Web sites on the Internet.

http://oeop.larc.nasa.gov/hep/hep-links.html Developed as a part of NASA's efforts to promote diversity, this site contains multiple links to Hispanic Web sites.

http://atozteacherstuff.com/pages/1883.shtml This site includes information for teachers about encouraging reading among Mexican American students and has an extensive list of works for all grade levels.

http://www.llanogrande.org/ This site describes the Llano Grande Project based in Edcouch-Elsa in the Rio Grande Valley and includes information about author David Rice, a participant in that project.

http://www.barcelonareview.com/40/e_is_int.htm This site contains an interview with Ilan Stavans conducted by The Barcelona Review's Spanish editor and a colleague, and included in an issue devoted to the topic of Spanglish. Most of the interview, therefore, was conducted in Spanish. An English translation is provided.

http://www.evanston.lib.il.us/library/bibliographies/latino.html. Latino Voices for Young Adults is a topical catalog and bibliography on the University of Illinois online library catalog. It is a great source of new books by Mexican American authors.

Related Texts

Carlson, Lori M. (ed.). (1994). Cool Salsa: Bilingual Poems on Growing Up Latino in the United States. New York: Henry Holt. 123pp. This poetry anthology includes works by well-known writers, such as Sandra Cisneros and Gary Soto, as well as previously unpublished poets.

Cisneros, Sandra. (2002). Caramelo. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002. 467pp. Describing her family's annual car trip from Chicago to Mexico City, Cisneros displays the contrasts of cultures that frame her life.

Cofer-Ortiz, Judith. (1998). The Year of Our Revolution: New Selected Stories and Poems. Houston: Piñata Books. 101pp. A collection of poems, short stories, and essays about growing up as seen through the eyes of a young woman known as both María Elenita and Mary Ellen, who straddles two cultures.

Herrera, Juan Felipe. (1998). Laughing Out Loud I Fly: Poems in English and Spanish. New York: Harper Collins. This work is a poetic celebration of family and culture with entries in both English and Spanish that evince life between two different worlds and contains whimsical black-and-white illustrations.

Rice, David. (2001). Crazy Loco: Stories About Growing Up Chicano in South Texas. New York: Dial Books. 135pp. Loosely based on the author's own Mexican American childhood in South Texas, this story collection contains both humor and insight.

Soto, Gary. (1990). Baseball in April and Other Stories. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. 111pp. This is a collection of growing-up tales from a noted Chicano author for young readers.

Stavans, Ilan (ed.). (1997). New World: Young Latino Writers. New York: Delta. 296pp. This is an anthology of short stories written by young Latinos in a variety of settings, from New York City to rural Mexico.

Teaching Ideas

(1) "Life is Like a…" Divide students into groups and give each group an object: an onion, a red sweater, a tin Band-Aid box with eleven pennies inside, a birthday candle, nesting dolls, and a helium balloon. Challenge the groups to write similes like Forrest Gump's famous"Life is like a box of chocolates." After the groups share their similes about their objects, the teacher plays the tape of Sandra Cisneros reading her story"Eleven." As students hear similes using their same objects, they begin to understand how similes are used by writers, not just poets, to enhance their writing. Examples from Nora Zeale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club shown on the overhead reinforce the concept.

[Summarized from "Forrest Gump and Sandra Cisneros Teach Similes" by Carol Lecren in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2003, p. 15.]

(2) "Exploring Cultures" After introducing the concept that different cultures have different customs and rules (and sharing examples from experiences and magazines), have students select a culture that they know (not just ethnic, but areas of interest such as skateboarding, dance, sports, etc.). They brainstorm traditions that might seem odd to an outsider. For homework, have students visit a place related to their chosen "culture," then start the writing process by "bubbling," or creating an idea or concept map. Once they have the basic ideas bubbled, students compile them into a story with a particular angle and for a particular audience.

[Summarized from "Exploring Cultures through Writing" by Garth Sundem in Classroom Notes Plus. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. April 2003, p. 2.]

(3) "Interviewing About History" Although this idea in 1989 involved asking students to interview parents about the John F. Kennedy assassination, it could be adapted to 2004 by having students interview grandparents or older friends or by changing the event to a more contemporary one, such as the 9/11 tragedy. Inspired by one student's asking her mother about the JFK assassination, the teacher had all students interview their parents on the event. Students read historical accounts of the events, and then generated questions to ask their parents. The interviews expanded into collections of memorabilia and artifacts resulting in a display at an evening event. The school/home collaboration is as important to this project as the information produced.

[Summarized from "A Backward Glance Forward" by Rose C. Reissman in Ideas Plus Book 10. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English. August 2003, pp. 19-21.]

(Review written by Betty Harrison and edited by Jennifer E. Moore)