In ‘…y no se lo trago la tierra’, “Un Rezo” a mother prays for her son away at war; she prays that he not die “como [el hijo] de dona Virignia” (14) and she professes that she will give her heart for his should anything go wrong. This (along with many of the other stories) is thoughts of a migrant in the new world coping with trying to blend old traditions/customs with a new culture and society.
This reading made me think of Isabel Allende’s The Infinite Plan. Allende’s novel is about a mexican family immigrating to america and how they cope with the differences in tradition and customs. The main character is Gregory, a young man who grows up in america with his immigrant parents and how he is treated as a mexican-american. In “Un Rez” the narrator and Nora (the mother in The Infinite Plan) experience the same feelings of desperation and confusion.
I really enjoyed this passage by Rivera, i found it very poetic. The repetitious nature of this chapter (if you can call them chapters) with the mother crying out for “Jesucristo… Virgen Maria… Virgen de San Jaun.. Guadalupe” (14) to watch over her son and to keep him safe from the bullets of “los comunistas y a los coreanos y… los chinos”; all of this adds to the poetic nature of this section. I enjoy how Rivera ties in his lyrical writing style with political opinions… How this book is told in so many parts, that it can cover way more aspects than a typical novel would with characters and continuous plot lines.
Both of these authors captured the struggles that many immigrant labourers went through as they resettled in America, some leading nomadic lifestyles traveling from state to state (like the discussion in the passage on page 17… “Iuta”), others coming from small towns and moving to large American cities. The characters and narrators in both books demonstrate a will to fit in and at the same time hold on to their heritage.