George Washington Gomez: a Mexicotexan Novel – Summary

AMÉRICO PAREDES (1915-1999), the renowned Chicano folklorist who passed on at 84 years old, is broadly considered to have been at the front line of the development that saw the introduction of Chicana/o abstract and social examinations as a scholastic order during the 1970s and 1980s. He was educator emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin and the creator of various weighty works, including With a Pistol in His Hand: A Border Ballad and Its Hero (University of Texas Press, 1970), the novel George Washington Gómez (Arte Público Press, 1990), an assortment of stories, The Hammon and the Beans and Other Stories (Arte Público Press, 1994) and two assortments of poetry: Cantos de adolescencia/Songs of Youth (Arte Público Press, 2007) and Between Two Worlds (Arte Público Press, 1990).

This exemplary novel about the battles of Texas Mexicans to save their property, culture and personality despite Anglo-American movement to and predominance of the Rio Grande Valley is accessible without precedent for Spanish.

Brought into the world in the early piece of the 20th century, George Washington Gómez is named after the American dissident and legend since his folks are sure their child will be an extraordinary man too.  George, or Guálinto as he's known, experiences childhood in tempestuous times.  His family has lived for ages in what has become Texas. "I was brought into the world here. My dad was brought into the world here as was my granddad and his dad before him. And afterward they come, they come and take it, take it and consider it theirs," his Uncle Feliciano seethes.

The Texas Mexicans' endeavors to reclaim their territory from the Gringos and the rinches—the merciless Texas Rangers—fall flat. Guálinto's dad, who never took part in the seditionist brutality, is killed without a second thought, and Feliciano makes a passing bed guarantee to raise his nephew without contempt.

Youthful Guálinto grows up in reality as we know it where Mexicans are treated as peons. Educators can beat and abuse them without any potential repercussions, and the majority of his Mexican-American companions exit school at a youthful age.  But the Gómez family demands that he proceed with his schooling, which they realize he will require to do extraordinary things for his kin. Thus his school years make an awful clash inside him: Guálinto on the other hand loathes and appreciates the Gringo, cherishes and disdains the Mexican.

Written during the 1930s however not distributed until 1990, George Washington Gómez has become required perusing for anybody intrigued by Mexican-American writing, culture and history.

I anticipated that this book should be yet one more story about the cliché, fiendish white man, however it was significantly more intricate than that. Paredes in any event fiddles with the two sides of the issue, and he makes a fine showing of depicting the double character that can create in a Mexican-American due to contending social powers. The completion of the novel appears to be sudden - generally in light of the fact that it is short and unforeseen, yet I think this suddenness assists with making a fairly incredible and stunning incongruity. By and by, I can't see the value in the extreme enemy of absorption message that wins (regardless of an intermittent intricacies presented), and I can't resist the urge to think it is improper to drive individuals to stay in social molds or to mark them tricksters when they want to absorb. One more note: Paredes draws a fine picture of adolescence and youth, which is the thing that truly makes the book meaningful. He appears to have an exceptional ability around here.

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