Quinto Sol Generation And Chicano Literature Transformation

Chicano literature, or contemporary Mexican American literature, underwent asignificant transformation during1960s and70s. During the process of thetransformation, Chicano poets, writers and critics successfully paced out of thenarrow literary ideology of early Mexican American literature. From the aspects ofliterary themes, expression, aesthetics and criticism, they expanded their prospects,dug deep inside, pushed Chicano literature reaching the top-rank altitude in worldliterature. Whereas, Quinto Sol Generation located in the core of the transformation,which raised the ever-hidden, nameless Mexican American literature to the height ofAmerican literature classics, set a solid foundation for future decades’ Chicanoliterature development. The Generation’s main writers was producing continually tillnow, left rich products, formed the main part of Chicano literature system. TheGeneration’s products also formed an important part of American multi-ethnicliterature, won the attention from American mainstream and world republic of letters.The Dissertation first combed early Mexican American literary heritage,abstracted its main features, analyzed its culture orientation, because these elementstransfixed the transformation process of1960s and70s, their evolution andsublimation formed the mainstream of the transformation, they directly decidedQuinto Sol Generation’s cultural orientation, provided the headstream of theGenerations decades’ endeavors.Ever since1600s, the early Mexicans who lived in Southwestern Americaactually lived fixed to the Border, their living was full of the awkward and dilemmaof border life, border identity was fully expressed, became a classic presentation ofpost-colonialism theories. Early Mexican American literature is in its primitive stage,which lacked in modern means of literary forms, e.g. novel or criticism, the mostwell-known expression of this literature is the heroic corridos that spread and createdbetween grass-root people. Similar with other nations’ heroic epics, corridos naivelyrepresents the hardship, racism, exploitation and vilification that the Mexicans werefacing. This living condition irritated the Mexicans to struggle and fight back, thecollision and fighting that exists within anywhere formed the main theme of corridos. The persevere struggling spirit is the significant culture orientation of that era.Over-simplified, complanated thinking exists in early corridos, the characters createdappeared over-simplified, e.g. the comparison between Gregorio Cortez and TexasRangers, Guadalupe Virgin and La Malinche. This over-simplification continued itsexistence till now, which was analyzed by Quinto Sol Generation, but still unable toeradicate, have no other way out, this feature can only be treated as one part of theculture heritage. We can say that the break through and transformation of earlyMexican American literary in1960s and70s settled a unique spiritual foundation ofstruggle, which is rare in other nation’s literatures.Upon the entering of1960s, with the flowering of black Civil Rights Movement,Chicano Movement came into being, leading Mexican Americans into the risingsocial movement trend. Mexican Americans experienced significant transformationin the aspects such as politics, culture, psychology and ideology, cultural nationalismwas canonized to establish a new ethnic identity, with which the new generation ofMexican Americans used “Chicano” to identity themselves that used to be derogativebefore, but was endowed with all-new active meaning in social movement tosymbolize the all-new ethnic identity.Chicano activists organized many social activities during Chicano Movementera, Cesar Chavez, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, Alurista are the representativesamong them. During the movement, they charged on the vices of racism, called forpeople’s awakening, inspired people’s wisdom, they initiated the Chicano ethnictransformation in ideology. Poetic talent appeared among many activists, e.g.Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales’s revolutionary epic I Am Joaquin, which retrospectsChicano’s unyielding struggle history and injects modern meaning, calls Chicanopeople to struggle bravely, to attain the self-determination of ethnic fortune. Aluristaco-authored the renowned El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, proclaimed the standing-upof the independent brown Mestizo ethnicity, established a self-conscious hybridethnicity in modern American society, and paved the way to the renaissance ofancient Aztlan culture. The Plan’s uttering produced immense motivation to pushChicano culture’s transformation, the new generation of Chicano intellectualsexperienced the Chicano movement, self-consciously implementing culturalnationalism prospects to examine the past history and Chicano living experiencethen, attempted to build all-new ethnic identity. After all, this is an unprecedentedactivity at that time, inner-craze produced by the sound of revolution prevents Chicano intellectuals from deepening thinking, which lead to many immaturity in theliterature of the social movement era.“The first modern Chicano novel” Pocho expressed a lost emotion thatprevailed among the Mexican Americans before Chicano movement era. Theideological upgrading between two generations of immigrants, struggles in a trapwithout finding the direction of ethnicity’s development. Sticking to the ethniccultural heritage or willing to be assimilated by Anglo mainstream is the confusionlingering the whole novel, which remain unsolved till the end. This is the keyproblem the whole Mexican Americans were facing. Although being lost, noaccomplishment ever reached, the root of Chicano culture was generating surgingenergy, from the abyss of collective unconscious scents of stirring can be sensed, thelost emotion before the dawn foreshow the transformation of Chicano ethnicity wascoming soon.The epic I Am Joaquin uttered during the height of Chicano movement,changed the mental state before, vigorous volcanic revolutionary passion filled thewhole epic. The epic quoted the character Joaquin commonly seen among the earlyMexican heroic epics to establish an energetic Chicanismo, the strong self-respectamong Chicanos, calling for the coming of revolution to break the shackles of racism,re-building the glory of Aztlan hybrid ethnicity. The epic casted the nirvana of lostemotion with verbalism of blood and fire, pushing Chicanismo’s presence and thebirth of revolutionaries that actively reforming Chicano society and culture. I AmJoaquin achieved a higher ideological significance than literary standard, whichshowed an important value orientation during Chicano Movement era: serve therevolution, serve the struggling front. But the sound and fury produced byrevolutionary passion can’t lead to profound spiritual essence; the breaking of oldculture doesn’t mean the fulfillment of a new one. During Chicano movement era,the ethnic literature appeared clumsy, but strong sense of experiment was prevailing,Chicano poets and writers attempted various literary forms to reform the earlyheritage, although numerous actions led to few success, these brave attemptsunquestionably produced immense impetus for Chicano literature transformation, i.e.the final decision of the direction needs the deposition of time.During this era, some Chicano scholars concentrated on the digging into theclassics of early Mexican literary works, to extract the valuable parts within, e.g.Americo Paredes. His renowned doctoral dissertation With his Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero fully excavated and trimmed the famous GregorioCortez legend in early Mexican Corridos, which made the dissertation became one ofthe most frequently quoted Chicano literary works. His Folktales of Mexico and ATexas Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border collected numerousclassic Corridos, among them the Corrido de Kiansis was considered most valuablethat drew Chicano scholar’s frequent quotation, criticism and comments for decades.The Quinto Sol Publications founded in Berkeley1967played a significant roleduring Chicano literary transformation during Chicano movement era. Upon thefounding, it is a fameless remote little scholastic publisher, but it is also the onlypublishing house that gave publishing opportunities to Chicano writers at that time,which consolidated its central position within Chicano literary world. With itsfounding, great piles of aged stocks of Chicano literature emerged, among themtalented masterpieces can be seen, such as… And the Earth Did Not Part by TomasRivera, Bless me, Ultima and Tortuga by Rudolfo Anaya, and Klail City Death TripSeries by Rolando Hinojosa.Upon the founding of Quinto Sol Publications, the chief editor Octavio I.Romano clearly expressed the publisher’s cultural mission: to encourage Chicanoliterature’s creation, push forward Chicano culture’s renaissance. A great deal ofChicano elite poets, writers and scholars united around it soon, they became thecentral nucleus of Chicano culture movement, therefore acquired the name “QuintoSol Generation”. The publisher was endowed with elite blood eversince its founding,all the editors came from higher education institutions, professors and doctorsappears common. The publisher’s editorial staff carried out their works with strongsense of mission, famous editors include Octavio I. Romano-V., Nick C. Vaca andHerminio C. Rios, they enthusiastically encouraged Chicano writers’ production,established Quinto Sol Literary Award to encourage outstanding Chicano writers andliterary works. The editors actively took part in literary criticism, almost all theliterary works are published with their detailed comments. They criticized on theAnglo mainstream’s “culture of poverty”,“essentialism” ideology that led to themisunderstanding of Chicano people; they promoted cultural nationalism, applyingmodernized theory to develop the valuable and to discard the valueless parts ofMexican American culture heritage, so that Chicano identity can be founded. ThePublisher edited El espejo and El Grito: A Journal of ContemporaryMexican-American Thought, provided modern Chicano literary ideology with careful safeguard and direction. The editors endeavored decisive significance to Chicanoliterature’s stabilization and formation during the cultural transformation era. Withthe hard work of Quinto Sol Publications, Chicano literature paced out ofrevolutionary noise, turned to the concern on ethnic living experiences and culturalheritage, attached importance to the aesthetic orientation of Chicano writers, whichled to the changing in literary atmosphere during this era. The revolutionary themeof North to Mexico began to be transformed to Barrio life theme, to the deep diggingof ethnic culture, inner psychological descriptions and aesthetic concerns. With theendeavors of Quinto Sol Generation, Chicano literature reached an unprecedentedheight, many aesthetic and cultural well-developed works are published, endlesslyemerging elite writers made this Generation became the summit of Chicano literature,important writers include: Tomas Rivera, Rudolfo Anaya, Rolando Hinojosa andEstela Portillo Trambley.The literary criticism during transformation era produced powerful pushingforward effects for the production of Quinto Sol Generation. The early MexicanAmerican literature before Chicano movement didn’t possess literary criticism bymodern means, whereas the literary criticism during social movement was filled withslogans and proclamations. The real modern means of literary criticism initiatedfrom Quinto Sol Generation, which was decided by Chicano literature’scharacteristics. From the later part of1960s, Chicano literary criticism expressedspecial concern on post-colonialism criticism theories, important theorists’ ideas,such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, were extensively implemented on Chicanoliterary criticism. Chicano’s special ethnic experience and the cultural heritageproduced provided post-colonialism with perfect experimental ground. Thoughliterary criticism activities were popular during the transformation era, theirlimitations were obvious, too: the critics put too much emphasis on post-colonialismbut lack of literary aesthetic concern.From the middle part of1970s, the later years of Quinto Sol Generation’sactivities, Chicana feminism began to surface, Chicana’s criticism differed fromAnglo feminism criticism, they were with vivid Chicano/a ethnic features. Theproblem they were facing were not only the relations between masculine world andthem, but also the over-simplification and extremeness became an important target toanalyze, this unique feature of Chicana criticism gained extensive attention from thecritics. Whereas, Chicana feminism criticism is experiencing its initiation during Quinto Sol Generation era, Chicanas paced to the theoretical height after theGeneration’s era.This dissertation provides the Chicano literary transformation during1960-70sand Quinto Sol Generation’s token with multi-dimensional analysis such as theaspects of literary heritage, era trend, literary spirit orientation and literary criticismtransformations, in order to illustrate the dynamics surging inside this unique literarytransformation, to provide American multi-cultural literature with a specialperspective, to fulfill the vacancy in China domestic scholarly studies on this subject.