Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - András Tarnóc: Ethnic Consciousness in Chicano Literature: The Voice of "La Raza".

Jose Montoya's "El Louie" describes the pachuco experience through a eulogy written upon the death of one vato loco, a young rebel who, despite his proud, defiant attitude and declared cultural independence dies in wretched solitude. Louie desires to become a moral example for his community, but as his attempts at assimilation into Anglo-America are frustrated, he turns to a self-destructive lifestyle. By the late 1980's the meaning of Aztlán has been shifted from the original declaration of cultural independence and Alurista's reclamation of a homeland to images of a transitory world. Jimmmy Santiago Baca's "Black Mesa Poems" present Aztlán not as a return home but as a "nomadic passage" (Pérez—Torres 84), and Lorna Dee Cervantes' "Poem for a Young Man..." (1981) demonstrates a new interpretation of liminality: I try. I go to my land, my tower of words and bolt the door, but the typewriter doesn't fade out the sounds of blasting and muffled outrage. My own days bring me slaps on the face. Every day I am deluged with reminders that this is not my land and this is my land (Lauter 3102). The Evolution of the Chicano Novel Josephina Niggli's Mexican Village (1948), born of the tradition of Mexican literary romanticism, with its protagonist completing a nostalgic journey to discover the therapeutic effects of the MexicanAmerican past is the forerunner of the Chicano novel and the first work written by a Mexican-American to reach the Anglo reading public (Elliott 804). While the 1947 publication of Mario Suarez's short stories in the Arizona Quarterly titled "Senor Garza" and "Kid Zopilote" indicate the appearance of the first Chicano writer, Jósé Antonio 78