Nasario García. Rattling Chains and Other Stories for Children / Ruido de cadenas y otros cuentos
para niños. Houston: Piñata Books, 2009. 160 pp. $9.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-55885-544-1.
Reviewed by Melina V. Vizcaíno-Alemán (University of New Mexico)
Published on H-NewMexico (April, 2010)
Commissioned by Tomas Jaehn
Reimagining Home in the Río Puerco Valley
Rattling Chains / Ruido de cadenas is set in the 1930s,
a climactic decade for both Hispanic folk studies and
southwestern literature. The New Deal created the New
Mexico Federal Writers’ Project, a state-run program that
targeted rural New Mexican villages, and provides a historical backdrop for García’s stories; it becomes a critical
way to understand the book itself. New Mexico’s Anglo
literary heritage maintains the state’s quaint depiction of
rural communities, but García’s stories redress this representation. In the first story, “The Magical Nicho / El nicho
mágico,” for instance, a popular New Mexican saint, El
Santo Niño de Atocha, comes to life in the context of
Junie’s father’s relief work. “My father had been working for the federal government building roads and other
projects,” says Junie. “He didn’t’ make much money, but
he and Mom were able to save a few dollars” (p. 7). Although subtle, federal relief creates a spiritual dilemma in
the story, and it sets the tone for the book’s supernatural
tales.
Nasario García’s bilingual collection of five short stories set in the Río Puerco Valley, New Mexico, is the latest
from Arte Público’s Piñata Books series for children. The
book features an English cover on one side and a Spanish
cover on the other, a publishing technique characteristic of the Piñata Books imprint. Despite the fact that the
book is marketed for children, García’s stories are pieces
of modern-day folklore. They are both fictional and folkloric, and a product of New Mexican oral and written
traditions. The stories take the perspective of protagonist Junie López, who mirrors the author as a young
boy growing up in rural Río Puerco. By populating the
stories with the voices of Junie’s ancestors, and those of
saints, witches, and owls, García maintains the integrity
of southwestern literary and oral traditions.
New Mexico’s Hispanic cuento (oral story) tradition
dates back to the Spanish colonial period in the Southwest. Serious studies in this genre began after 1912 with
the work of Aurelio M. Espinosa and later developed with
the research and publications of Arthur L. Campa and
George I. Sánchez. García’s own oral histories of the
Río Puerco Valley continue this tradition. New Mexico’s
cultural industry emerged contemporaneously with the
study of Hispanic folklore, as artists and writers migrated
to the Southwest in the early twentieth century. Alice
Corbin Henderson and Mary Austin in Santa Fe, and Mabel Dodge Luhan in Taos focused their energy and representations of the Southwest on its “primitive” folk cultures, which today still populate the regional literary tradition.
García’s attention to geography makes the home a
critical place in which progress and traditions come together. “The Magical Nicho / El nicho mágico” issues a
lesson on how to incorporate progress without interrupting folk religious traditions. In fact, the home restores
balance and order in all of García’s stories. When Junie or the other fictional characters cross the Río Puerco
into strange territory, the home keeps their place in the
community. In “The Coquimbo Owl / El coqumibo,” for
instance, García tells about the folk Hispanic superstition of owls, but he also teaches about the home. Junie
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sneaks out of his grandma’s house and encounters a bruja
(witch) disguised as an owl, so that, by the end, the home
he escapes becomes a place of refuge.
village itself has no name. Moreover, the only characters besides his own family to appear in these stories are
mythical figures or people from the past, suggesting that
Junie’s village suffered the fate of El Coruco and is now
In the title story, García closes his short but delight- a ghost town. What comes to life is the Río Puerco, for
ful collection with a supernatural tale that also serves the river marks the boundary between the familiar and
as a lesson on the modern significance of ghost towns.
the strange. Junie must learn how to cross and maintain
Literally it is about “El Coruco” (chicken coop), “an enthose boundaries, as do the other fictional characters in
chanted place where chains rattle,” but allegorically the the stories. As pieces of folklore, García’s stories teach
story is about the author’s own rural home (p. 49). Junie about the past, but as fictional pieces they teach through
begins telling the story, but his grandfather’s voice takes historical allegory about the present Río Puerco.
over and he tells Junie two tales about fabled witches and
bright lights in El Coruco. In one tale a fireball chases a
García’s supernatural stories in Rattling Chains /
man into the Río Puerco, and in the other a witch travels Ruido de cadenas reveal something about modernity in
the sky in the form of a bright light. When Junie asks rural New Mexico, even as they resolve through historihis grandpa if the lights were like airplanes, he replies cal allegory the vanishing effects of progress. While the
“No hijito. There were no planes back then” (p. 56). Yet book’s magic evokes a child’s imagination, it also beJunie’s question evokes the modern. Bright lights are a comes a folk lesson. The home establishes Junie’s place in
supernatural force in grandpa’s story, but in Junie’s ex- the stories and in Río Puerco, but the stories themselves
perience they are modern forces. As the first story re- give the author a place to reimagine his home in a modern
veals, Junie’s father is a relief worker. At the end of the setting. The stories connect the supernatural to symbols
collection, when Junie’s grandpa warns, “watch out for of progress to teach Junie a lesson about transgression
the moving lights. They could be witches,” the book also and homecoming. Yet the collection itself transgresses
issues a warning about progress (p. 61).
fictional and folkloric boundaries so as to stage the author’s own homecoming. In the process, García modifies
Though the stories take place during the 1930s, they the folk tradition using fictional tools that restore the rucarry a message about the present Río Puerco landscape
ral home in the present, making Rattling Chains / Ruido
and Junie’s home. Junie mentions his village to locate
de cadenas and its lessons as relevant for today as in the
his family’s ranch and his grandparents’ homes, but the past.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at:
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Citation: Melina V. Vizcaíno-Alemán. Review of García, Nasario, Rattling Chains and Other Stories for Children /
Ruido de cadenas y otros cuentos para niños. H-NewMexico, H-Net Reviews. April, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=26050
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoncommercialNo Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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