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English 727 (#21234)
Chicano/a Children’s Literature & Culture
Spring 2016
San Diego State University
M 4:00 – 6:40 pm
Room SH 113
Phillip Serrato
Office: AL 225
Phone/voice: (619) 594-5170
Email: pserrato@mail.sdsu.edu
Office Hour: T 11:00 am – noon
and by appointment
Chicano/a Children’s Literature and Culture
This semester we will investigate the history, politics, accomplishments, and overall significance
of Chicano/a children’s literature and culture. To establish some of the stakes involved in the
representation of ethno-cultural identities and formations in children’s (and other) texts, we will
first explore some (generally racist) portrayals of Mexicans and other Latinos/as in early
twentieth century U.S. children’s literature. We will then examine the proliferation of Chicano/a
children’s texts in the 1970s,considering how and why, amidst the Chicano Movement, the genre
of children’s literature came to constitute a crucial medium for Chicano and Chicana cultural
workers. After covering works such as Elia Robledo Durán’s Joaquín, niño de Aztlán (1972) and
Nepthtalí de León’s I Will Catch the Sun (1973), we will move into the 1990s, which, owing to a
number of factors, witnessed the second great explosion of Chicano/a children’s literature. In our
discussion of works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Pat Mora, Luis Rodríguez, Francisco Jiménez, and
many others (including Gary Soto, I guess), we will unpack the methods used by these authors to
engage with and respond to an array of social concerns. Eventually we will close out the
semester with literature produced in the early years of the 21st century (including work by U.S.
Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera). As we consider in this last segment of the course the
evolution of Chicano/a children’s literature and contemplate the next steps authors are currently
taking, could be taking, or should be taking, especially with regard to social matters and identity
politics, we will open up the scope of the course to other types of cultural productions for
children, including television (Dora the Explorer and El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny
Rivera), film (Spare Parts and McFarland, U.S.A.) and music (Cheech Marin, Los Lobos, Tish
Hinojosa, and Ozomatli). To inform our work with the assorted picture books, novels, and multimedia programming that will constitute our primary texts, we will read an array of secondary
critical and theoretical pieces on subjects such as Chicano/a history, movements within
Chicana/o literature and culture, children’s literature in general, and the politics of art.
Objectives
Develop critical awareness of and deep engagement with contemporary issues related to diversity
in children’s literature and culture.
Strengthen analytical and critical thinking skills.
Nurture your ongoing scholarly professionalization (regardless of individual academic or
professional goals).
Develop scholarly competencies in the fields of children’s literature and culture, Chicano/a
literature and culture, and Chicano/a children’s literature and culture.
Practice multi-modal engagement with diverse literary genres and other forms of
artistic/cultural/critical/theoretical production.
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Course Grade
Presentation
Zine
Review
Participation
Final Paper
20%
20%
20%
10%
30%
Requirements
Presentation: Your presentation may be on one of the assigned texts from our syllabus, a
Chicano/a text not on our syllabus, or some other non-Chicano/a text not on our syllabus but
somehow relevant to the objectives of our seminar. Your goal is to provide the class with an
insightful, organized, and cogent introduction to a specific text. In the process, you will be
contributing to our overarching effort to broaden everyone’s textual and intellectual horizons.
Please notify me, via email, of your chosen text as soon as possible.
Group-produced zine on Chicano/a children’s literature and culture: In a group of 4-5
students you will produce a zine on Chicano/a children’s literature and culture. The objective of
this project is twofold: 1) to offer a creative and playful yet still high-impact opportunity for you
to engage with Chicano/a children’s literature and culture, and 2) to put you in a position of
public advocacy and intellectualism in which you broker a public audience’s introduction to
Chicano/a children’s literature and culture. You have all kinds of freedom with this project. Your
zine may include editorials, author interviews, original creative writing (e.g., fiction, poetry),
original visual concoctions, flash reviews, graffiti, pop ups, miscellaneous flourishes and
indulgences…whatever. At the very least, though, your group’s zine should have some
foundational, motivating principle which holds the production together and gives everyone in the
group a shared, inspired sense of the type of product to which they are contributing along with a
shared, inspired sense of what this product is trying, in a spectacularly hodgepodge fashion, to
achieve.
500-1000 word analytical review of a Chicano/a children’s text: On one hand, this exercise
functions as one more mode of critical engagement with Chicano/a children’s literature and
culture. On the other hand, it is intended to give you some practice with blog writing. Your goal
should be to share with (and model for) a non-specialist audience a thoughtful, rigorous analysis
and evaluation of a Chicano/a children’s text. The text which you review may be something
assigned on our syllabus, or it may be something from outside our syllabus (e.g., one of the
children’s films screened at the San Diego Latino Film Festival (March 10-20), if you are so
inclined). This review will be mounted on a class blog devoted to the review of Chicano/a
children’s literature and culture. Please notify me, via email, of your chosen text as soon as
possible.
Research paper: This paper is expected to be 12-15 pages in length on a topic of your choice.
This paper is a crucial exercise in your ongoing development/professionalization as a literary
scholar (regardless of your actual professional aspirations and interests). You are expected to
demonstrate a solid ability to formulate an insightful thesis, perform close textual analysis, and
situate your work in relation to extant scholarship, all with clear prose and appropriate
organizational strategies.
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Required Books
The following texts may be purchased at the Bookstore or online at www.amazon.com or
www.bookfinder.com.
Gary Soto, Living Up the Street
Gary Soto, Buried Onions
Francisco Jiménez, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child(U of New Mexico P
0826317979)
Gloria Anzaldúa, Prietita and the Ghost Woman
Isabel Quintero, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
Kathleen Stewart, Ordinary Affects
Gary Soto, Neighborhood Odes
Franicisco Alarcón, Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems
Francisco Alarcón, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems
Brad Evans and Henry Giroux, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of
Spectacle
Franco Berardi, The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance
Schedule
January 25. The Politics of Ethnicity in/and Children’s Literature
Michelle Martin, chapters 2, 3, and 8 of Brown Gold: Milestones of African-American Children’s
Picture Books, 1845-2002 [on Blackboard]
Guy Debord, chapter 1 (“Separation Perfected”) of The Society of the Spectacle [available at
http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/debord/1.htm]
Captain James Carson, The Saddle Boys on Mexican Trailsor, In the Hands of the Enemy (1915)
[on Blackboard]
Leo Politi, Pedro, Angel of Olvera Street (1946) [on Blackboard]
February 1. The Mexican/Mexican American in the American Imaginary
Arnoldo de León, chapters 1-3 of They Called Them Greasers: Anglo Attitudes Toward
Mexicans in Texas, 1821-1900 [on Blackboard]
Homi Bhabha, chapters 3-4 of The Location of Culture [on Blackboard]
Carla Greene, Manuel, Young Mexican American (1969) [on Blackboard]
Maurine Gee, Chicano, Amigo (1972) [on Blackboard]
February 8. The Rise of Chicano/a Children’s Literature
Manuel Martín-Rodríguez, chapter 1 of Life in Search of Readers: Reading (in) Chicano/a
Literature [on Blackboard]
Rose Blue, We Are Chicano (1973) [on Blackboard]
Nephtalí de León, I Will Catch the Sun (1973) [on Blackboard]
Margarita, The New Yellow Station Wagon (1976) [on Blackboard]
----------, Grampa Gomez’ Garden (1977) [on Blackboard]
Elia Robledo Durán, Joaquín, niño de Aztlán (1972) [on Blackboard]
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February 15. Gary Soto Writes for Children
Werner Sollors, chapter 1 of Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture [on
Blackboard]
Gary Soto, Living Up the Street (1985)
----------, Buried Onions (1997)
----------, Chato’s Kitchen (1995) [on Blackboard]
February 22. Pat Mora’s Deconstructions and Renarrativizations
Rubén Sandoval, Games, Games, Games: Chicano Children at Play (1977) [on Blackboard]
Pat Mora, The Desert Is My Mother (1994) [on Blackboard]
----------, Doña Flor: A Tall Tale about a Giant Woman with a Big Heart (2005) [on
Blackboard]
----------, Pablo’s Tree (1994) [on Blackboard]
Rosaura Sánchez, “Deconstructions and Renarrativizations: Trends in Chicana Literature” [on
Blackboard]
February 29. “What are young people to think?”
Francisco Jiménez, The Circuit: Stories from the Life of a Migrant Child (1997)
Anne Halladay, New Friends for Pepe (1959) [on Blackboard]
Juan Felipe Herrera, Calling the Doves (1995) [on Blackboard]
Juan Felipe Herrera, Super Cilantro Girl (2003) [on Blackboard]
Manuel Martín-Rodríguez, chapter 4 of Life in Search of Readers: Reading (in) Chicano/a
Literature [on Blackboard]
March 7. Stories for New Mestizas (and New Mestizos)
Graciela and Joe Molnar, Graciela: A Mexican-American Child Tells Her Story (1972) [on
Blackboard]
Gloria Anzaldúa, Friends from the Other Side (1993) [on Blackboard]
----------, Prietita and the Ghost Woman (1995)
Sonia Saldívar-Hull, “Mestiza Consciousness and Politics: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La
Frontera” [on Blackboard]
Trinh. T. Minh-ha, chapter 4 of Woman, Native, Other [on Blackboard]
March 14. Luis J. Rodríguez Gets Real
Luis J. Rodríguez, América Is Her Name (1998) [on Blackboard]
----------, It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way: A Barrio Story (1999) [on Blackboard]
Vincent Perez, “‘Running’ and Resistance: Nihilism and Cultural Memory in Chicano Urban
Narratives” [on Blackboard]
March 21. Televisual Diversity
Dora the Explorer
El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera
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{March 23: Michelle Martin will be delivering a public lecture at 5:00 pm. Title and
location TBA.}
April 4. Piñata Party! Or, Hips Don’t Lie
Los Lobos, Papa’s Dream
Cheech Marin, My Name Is Cheech, the School Bus Driver
Ozomatli, Ozomatli Presents OzoKidz
Moona Luna, Piñata Party!
Tish Hinojosa, Cada Niño/Every Child
Amanda Niland, “‘Row, row, row your boat’: Singing, Identity and Belonging in a Nursery”
(International Journal of Early Years Education 23.1 (2015): 4 -16) [on Blackboard]
April 11. #WeNeedDiverseImages
McFarland, USA (2015) [available in Media Library or for online rental]
Spare Parts (2015) [available in Media Library or for online rental]
Jesus Treviño, “Chicano Cinema” (New Scholar: An Americanist Review, 1982; 8 (1-2): 167180) [on Blackboard]
April 18. Chicano/a Children’s Literature Grows Up
Isabel Quintero, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces (2014)
Kathleen Stewart, Ordinary Affects
April 25. Local Poetry
Gary Soto, Neighborhood Odes (1992)
Francisco Alarcón, Angels Ride Bikes and Other Fall Poems (1999)
----------, Laughing Tomatoes and Other Spring Poems (1997)
Brad Evans and Henry Giroux, Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of
Spectacle
May 2. Poetry Now
Juan Felipe Herrera, Downtown Boy (2005) [on Blackboard]
Gary Soto, “Why I Don’t Write Children’s Literature” [on Blackboard]
Berardi, The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance
Final paper due May 12 by noon in AL 225.