Subtítulos (271)
0:00Let me tell you about my family. If you
0:01arrive late to the party, you got to say
0:03hi to everybody. Always compliment the
0:05cooking. And if my theas ask you for a
0:07dance, you better say yes. A family is
0:10like its own little world with its own
0:12very particular culture. But our
0:14families are also a place where we
0:16absorb ideas and expectations about the
0:19world around us. And in Latin American
0:21literature, the family isn't just
0:23personal, it's political. Hi, I'm Kurly
0:26Velasquez and this is Crash Course Latin
0:34Don't you just love a romance novel?
0:36Give me all the tropes. I'll eat them up
0:38like a little chocolate FL. Enemies to
0:40lovers, love triangles, love
0:42quadrangles. Yes, more. Back in the 19th
0:46century, romance novels in Latin America
0:48weren't just about meat cute. They were
0:50about nation building. You see, after
0:53Latin American countries fought for and
0:55won independence from European nations,
0:58they had a lot of rebuilding to do.
1:00Political leaders across many countries
1:02gained power by uniting different
1:04regions, races, and people under one
1:07national identity. And romance novels
1:10pose a unique vision for how to get it
1:12done. Maybe love could conquer all. Take
1:14Brazilian author Jose Dean's 1865
1:18novelasma. It follows two star cross
1:21lovers in the early 1600s. Imagine Romeo
1:24and Juliet, but with colonialism, power
1:27imbalances, and fewer cute balcony
1:29scenes. Here's the setup. She's an
1:31indigenous woman named Asimma. He's a
1:33Portuguese colonist named Marim. They're
1:36into each other, but of course, the odds
1:37are against them. It's giving love
1:39story. This love is difficult, but it's
1:41real. On one hand, this is an indigenous
1:44novel in that it's concerned with
1:47indigenous people, but it's also a kind
1:49of Brazilian creation myth, a tale of
1:52tragic passion that's also like
1:54supercharged with patriotism. Clear as
1:57mud, right? We'll unpack it. For
1:59starters, name is an anagram for
2:02America, which is referencing Latin
2:04America, not the United States of. And
2:07remember, Latin America at this time was
2:09a fairly new idea focused on unifying
2:13different countries. Now, dies after
2:16giving birth to a son, Moid, whose name
2:18means son of pain. Many scholars have
2:21argued that death symbolizes the idea
2:24that indigenous people's way of life
2:26needed to be destroyed in order to
2:28create this new unified nation. On the
2:31other hand, scholar Doris argues that
2:34Irasma's son represents the point where
2:37an unmistakably resilient past blends
2:40with an unpredictable future. In other
2:43words, rather than being indigenous or
2:45Portuguese, Mosi is something new, a mix
2:49that S calls quintessentially Brazilian.
2:52For this reason, she calls this book and
2:54other romance novels like it
2:56foundational fictions, stories that
2:59present romance across social divides as
3:02the bedrock for building a country. She
3:04argues that this tale of tragic yearning
3:07is really about encouraging readers to
3:09be fruitful and multiply. Cuz in case
3:12you don't already have the on your back
3:14about when you're going to have babies,
3:17do it for your country. See what I mean
3:19about the family is political and with
3:20all that? have kids to save your country
3:22business in the air. It's no surprise
3:24Latin American literature also has
3:26explored another type of family bond,
3:29parenthood. Take Chilean poet Gabriella
3:32Mistral, who's often called La Madre de
3:35Laatria or mother of the homeland. For
3:38real though, her face is on postal
3:39stamps and everything. In 1945, she went
3:42down in history as the first Latin
3:44American writer ever to win a Nobel
3:47Prize in literature. And even though
3:49Agusto Pinoett's military dictatorship
3:51tried to claim her as a quaint
3:53traditional poet in the 1970s and 80s,
3:56today she's often celebrated as a
3:59feminist and an LGBTQ icon. Misad became
4:03especially wellknown for her writing for
4:05and about children. Although she never
4:07had kids of her own, which was unusual
4:09for most Chilean women at the time, she
4:12was a teacher and she raised her nephew.
4:15So she cared about kids deeply and often
4:17wrote about motherhood. Like po Madres,
4:20the mother's poems is written from the
4:23perspective of someone who's pregnant,
4:25expressing how her body is being made
4:27strange and different. A new pulse
4:30echoing her own. But even though Mistral
4:33revered motherhood, she refused to
4:35reduce women's lives to that role alone.
4:37When she was just 17, she wrote an
4:40article defending women's access to
4:42education. And throughout her life,
4:44Mistral advocated for the rights of
4:46people with less power in her society,
4:49women, indigenous people, and kids. I
4:52think about that when I read her poem,
4:53El Nino Solo, the lonely child. In it,
4:56the speaker hears a crying baby, not her
4:58own, and rushes into the house to
5:00comfort him. Holding the baby, the
5:02speaker says, "Trembling, a lullaby
5:05arose from within me." And we could read
5:07that as someone who longed to be a
5:09parent, letting herself experience what
5:12that might be like for a moment. But
5:14when I consider how Misad educated and
5:16advocated for kids her whole life, I
5:18think about how having biological kids
5:20isn't the only way to have kids in your
5:22life or care for them. Fiercely cool
5:25Thea or Theo, Inspiring Teacher, also
5:28options. And that's what I love about
5:30books, right? Our interpretations can
5:32reinforce our expectations or challenge
5:36them or even help us imagine new
5:38possibilities for how we might live. And
5:41when it comes to new possibilities,
5:43families are often the place where the
5:44next generation develops. The young
5:46people will have to blaze their own
5:48paths, sometimes in contradiction to
5:51their parents' expectations. Let me give
5:53you the curly notes about a book that
5:55tackles these tensions. Erica El
5:58Sanchez's 2017 novel, I Am Not Your
6:01Perfect Mexican Daughter.
6:04This book follows Julia, a 15-year-old
6:06in Chicago and the daughter of Mexican
6:08immigrants, much like Sanchez herself.
6:11And like a lot of firstgen kids, Julia
6:14feels pressured to make her family
6:15proud. It's not that I'm living life for
6:17them exactly, but I have so many choices
6:20they've never had, and I feel like I can
6:22do so much with what I've been given.
6:25What a waste their journey would be if I
6:27had just settled for a dull, mediocre
6:29life. O, baby girl, that is so real.
6:32Julia feels indebted to her parents for
6:34the life she has, especially her amma
6:36who cleans houses all day, and then
6:38comes home and keeps cleaning. But she
6:40also feels trapped by her mom's
6:42traditional expectations. She wants to
6:44smooch boys, go to the top of the Eiffel
6:46Tower, become a famous writer, and so do
6:49I. Sorry, back to it. On top of it all,
6:53Julia feels like she's constantly being
6:55compared to her older sister, Olga, the
6:58actual perfect Mexican daughter who
7:00recently died in a car accident. As far
7:03as Julia can tell, Olga never swore or
7:05talked back or did anything more
7:07exciting than occasionally watching a
7:09romcom. But, okay, here's the cheese.
7:11Julia's sister and her mom had stuff
7:13going on Julia never imagined. Like,
7:17Olga owned lingerie. So scandalous. Amma
7:21was once a teenager with a rebellious
7:23streak. And they both had secrets like
7:26oldest private life outside of the
7:28family and Amma's traumatic border
7:30crossing experience, which of course
7:33shaped her fears for her own daughters.
7:35These truths shatter Julia's
7:37one-dimensional view of the women in her
7:39family. Forget perfect. They're just as
7:42real and complicated as she is. Just as
7:44full of desires and contradictions under
7:47the weight of cultural expectations. And
7:49understanding this actually helps Julia
7:52feel closer to her mom and her sister
7:54even after her sister's gone. We love to
7:57see a family grow closer together, but
7:59literature lets us explore all kinds of
8:02scenarios. And in some cases, novels
8:05contemplate making a new family outside
8:07our family of origin. We see this theme
8:10in Justin Taus's 2011 novel, We The
8:14Animals, which follows an unnamed
8:16narrator whose father is Puerto Rican
8:19and whose mother is white. At the
8:21beginning of the book, he's 6 years old,
8:23roaming wild around his upstate New York
8:25hometown with his two older brothers.
8:28The three boys move together like a
8:30pack, a three torsoed beast. They're a
8:33unit, always calling themselves we and
8:36us. But there's trouble at home. Their
8:40dad, Bops, is a volatile guy. Sometimes
8:43affectionate, but often abusive. On the
8:46narrator's 7th birthday, Ma implores her
8:48son never to grow up. She whispered it
8:51all to me, her needs so big. No softness
8:54anywhere, only bops and boys turning
8:57into bops. You get the sense she's
8:59begging her son not to become the kind
9:01of man his dad is. And when the boy
9:04replies, "I won't." It's the first time
9:07in the book he sets himself apart from
9:09his brothers, switching from we to I. As
9:12he grows up, he realizes he is different
9:14from his dad and brother's tough,
9:16aggressive brand of masculinity. The
9:18narrator is sensitive. He's also
9:21attracted to men, but he keeps that a
9:23secret. All the while, he's figuring out
9:25what his version of masculinity looks
9:27like. And just by existing, he
9:29challenges his family's expectation of
9:32what it means to be a man. The narrator
9:34says, "His brothers smelled my
9:36difference, my sharp pansy scent, and
9:39didn't know what to do with it. All at
9:42once, they were disgusted and jealous
9:44and deeply protective and deeply proud."
9:48But it all comes to a head one night
9:49when Ma snoops in her son's journal,
9:52outing him, and the whole family rejects
9:54him. It's a dark ending, but there is a
9:57light of hope in the last chapter.
9:59Though the narrator has cut ties with
10:01his family, he hints that he's found a
10:03new intimacy among people like himself.
10:07We're left with the idea that sometimes
10:09becoming who we are means seeking
10:11kinship outside of the family we started
10:14with. Family, it's where we first learn
10:16how to be people. It's hugs and
10:19handme-downs, generational trauma, and
10:21unsolicited relationship advice. It's
10:24messy. It's powerful. And in Latin
10:26American literature, it's a window into
10:29bigger questions about nationhood,
10:32identity, and belonging. Next time,
10:34we're talking about other members of the
10:36family, animals. See you then. Thanks
10:39for watching this episode of Crash
10:40Course Latin American Literature, which
10:42was filmed at the Gardlos Hernandez
10:44studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was
10:47made with the help of all these people
10:49with families. If you want to help keep
10:51Crash Course free for everyone forever,
10:54you can join our community on Patreon.
10:56Oh, and if you're interested in learning
10:57about some of the topics covered in this
10:59episode, we pulled together a playlist
