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Ríos’s storytelling draws on the oral traditions of his Latino heritage while celebrating its diversity and sense of community. His speakers and characters reveal the tensions of living in a racially charged area of the Southwest. Magical realism — a mixture of fantasy and realism — characterizes much of Ríos’s work. Ríos thinks of teaching and writing as complementary activities. In one interview he explains, “When I sit down to write something, I’m not neglecting my teaching one bit. And when I speak aloud in front of a class, I’m not neglecting my writing one bit. They are two arms of the same body. They serve each other.” Frequently taught and translated, Ríos’s work has been adapted both for dance and as popular music.
[2195] Robert Runyon, Woman and Two Children, South Texas Border (1920),
courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Photograph of woman and children at the Mexico-U.S. border. Folk music and literature from this region often highlight the conflicts between Anglos and Chicanos. See Americo Paredes’s novel George Washington Gomez. Writer Alberto Ríos was born near the border, and much of his work deals with the interaction of Mexican and American cultures. His first book, Whispering to Fool the Wind, won the Walt Whitman Award.
[3551] Anonymous, Latino. A Jitterbugging Yuma. Arizona 1942 (1942),
courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Latino youths dancing in Yuma, Arizona, near the hometown of writer Alberto Ríos. Ríos teaches English at Arizona State University. His memoir Capirotada recounts his childhood on the Mexico-U.S. border.
[5245] Salvador Brquez, Dolores del Rios as Ramona (1928),
courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.
Newspaper movie illustration. Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona failed to improve treatment of California Indians as she had hoped it would. Instead, elements of the story’s romantic depiction of California’s Hispanic heritage became firmly entrenched in the mythology of the region.
[8754] Elliot Young, Interview: “Aztlán as the U.S. Southwest” (2002),
courtesy of American Passages and Annenberg Media.
Professor Elliot Young discusses Aztlán, the mythical city from which the Mexiques came before they arrived in central Mexico, and the role Aztlán plays in Chicano consciousness.