Book #62: Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros
December 20, 2013
I wouldn't be a lie to say that I've been very busy this month. Work, and the end of the semester shit with my graduate classes...on top of that, trying to get ready for Christmas (I have most of the gifts purchased for my family, though none have been wrapped, and two haven't arrived in the mail)...I've been very busy. But to be perfectly honest, in my free time, I've been lounging out on the couch watching Netflix on my phone. I watched both seasons of
Lilyhammer, and am a few episodes into
Orange is the New Black...with these original shows, and the fourth season of
Arrested Development, Netflix is making the membership fee worth the price. Not that I'm trying to promote anything, I'm just saying...
But I'm determined to get some reading done during my break. It even started a day early, since there was an ice storm last night (more like a light, misty rain that froze over), and my district called it off. No complaints here! So I finished up a book that I've been slacking on for a few weeks, and am determined to knock off a couple more that I have laying around while I'm on break from work
and school. Just a few hours to work at my side job...otherwise, I've got plenty of free time.
I've read a couple of works by Cisneros before. I still have a copy of
Woman Hollering Creek, a short story collection, from a course from my undergrad days, and I've read
The House on Mango Street a couple of times. The latter has become almost a staple in public schools; I even used it myself in my last teaching assignment.
Caramelo, a more recent work (I think it was published in 2002?), has some similarities to
Mango Street, but it's not told in short vignettes (although some sections are). The narrative is often poetic, which I would expect.
From the footnotes (featured at the end the sections on my borrowed electronic copy), it would seem that some of the story is based on Cisnero's own experiences. As would be expected, the main character, Lala, and her family, are Mexican, and they live in Chicago. Lala (Celaya) is the youngest of seven Reyes children, and the only girl (though she later finds out that a poor Mexican girl, a childhood friend of hers, is her older half-sister). The story that she tells is split into three parts. The first recalls that summer in Mexico City, when she knew her half-sister Candelaria. The girl, the very poor and dirty daughter of a cleaning woman (and, as it is later revealed, Lala's father's secret child), is described as having skin that is dark and smooth like caramel. Young Lala is fascinated by her, but is later forbidden to play with her after she catches lice. It is never revealed what happens to Candelaria after she abruptly leaves the Reyes family while accompanying them on a vacation. On that same trip, Lala's mother, Zoila, gets into a fight with her husband. The reason is Candelaria, but this isn't revealed to Lala until years later, in the third part of the book. Lala's grandmother, Soledad (known as the Awful Grandmother to Lala and the other Reyes grandchildren), is the one who tells Zoila; the two don't get along.
In the second part, Lala is telling the story of Soledad's life. At times, she (as the narrator) converses with her grandmother's ghost; it is later revealed that Soledad has been haunting her granddaughter since the girl was a young teenager. Soledad had a difficult life; when her mother, a weaver of rebozas (very fine shawls), dies, her depressed father and his new wife send Soledad to live with relatives. It is not an ideal environment for the young woman; her uncle is a pervert, and there are so many neglected cousins running around that she is nothing more than a babysitter and servant. Her cousin Narcisso meets her and pities her, and she eventually ends up as a servant in
his parent's home. A bit of an improvement, but she is still a second-class citizen in her own family. But when she and Narcisso begin a sexual relationship, Narcisso's ailing father shames his son into doing the honorable thing, and marrying the poor girl.
Narcisso is a spoiled son, and he cheats on his pregnant wife with a gypsy woman who wears iguanas on her head. He loves that woman for the rest of his life, while his neglected wife must seek love elsewhere...namely, from her eldest son Inocencio, Zoila's husband and Lala's father. Soledad and Lala are the two loves of Inocencio's life, and Soledad is jealous of the love that her son has for both his wife and all his children. In the third part of the story, after her husband's death, she goes to live with her son and his family in Chicago, convincing them to go with her to San Antonio. The bulk of the remainder of the story takes place there, as Lala enters her teen years, fights with her mother (who is pretty bitchy to her in particular), struggles to fit in at her new school, and chaffs under her father's expectations of her as a good Mexican-American girl. She runs away with her boyfriend, but he feels guilty and leaves her, and she goes home, heartbroken and ashamed. She begins to hear her grandmother's voice, and even sees her after her father has a heart attack and nearly dies in the hospital. Soledad's ghost regrets being cruel to Zoila, and to others, in her life, but she had it so hard. Lala, though she never liked her grandmother, pities her.
The melodramatic aspects of Lala's family's story are compared to the
telenovelas that are so much a huge part of Mexican popular culture. In fact, Cisneros includes some information about Mexican (and Mexican-American) entertainers from the early 20th century through the 1960's. There still aren't many representations of Hispanic life and culture in the mainstream media (or of other minority races, really), but some have broken through, and Cisneros acknowledges some of them, weaving them into the story. There are, of course, other references to Mexican culture, as Lala, who was born in and has spent much of her life in the Midwest, views it with appreciation because she knows that it's a part of herself. While the concept of being trapped between two cultures (which is a popular theme in works by authors whose families come from other countries) is somewhat a part of this story, it's only a small part of it. This is a family story, and it is a story about women. Lala's mother and aunt don't get as much focus, but their stories are interesting, if incomplete. I don't understand how Zoila became so volatile. She was snappish and rude even before the truth came out about Candelaria.
When I made myself sit down and read this book, I got into it. I don't know why I dragged my feet with it. I appreciate Cisneros' works, and this one had what I would expect one of her books to have. This book had some mystical elements, but it also had so much of the author in it. I enjoy Cisneros use of details; I always appreciate minute but significant details. As I've noted before, I love reading stories that have details about other cultures, and this work had some information about Mexico's tumultuous history, as seen through Soledad's eyes. Cisneros' other works don't seem to have gotten as much attention as
Mango Street, but I'm glad that she's still writing and publishing today.
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According to the caption that accompanied this picture, this is a handmade Mexican rebozo, the same kind that Soledad took so much pride in. She herself never learned the craft, since her mother died when she was so young, but she could judge the quality of one. Her most prized possession was her caramel rebozo, one her mother had made, which eventually comes into Lala's hands.
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Tongolele, the actress and dancer who is a minor character in "Aunty Light Skin's" story. She, among other famous Hispanic entertainers, is acknowledged in the story.
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