Latinx Literature!
NATIONALISM
VIOLENCE
GENRE
RACE
POVERTY
COLORISM
The Garcia family engages in a form of subtle colorism when members of the family praises the offspring that visibly inhereted their Swedish great great grandmother's genes. “My great-grandfather married a Swedish girl, you know? So the family has light-colored blood, and that Sandi got it all. But imagine, spirit of contradiction, she wanted to be darker complected like her sisters” (53). This speaks to the way in which Anglo features are more desireable in multicultural families, causing a schism between lighter and darker skin pigmentations despite sharing the same heritage. 
The onset of El Plan de Aztlán introduces the mestizo as the face of its movement as it states: "With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture" (1). This categorization leads to complications as it does not take into account those lighter or darker than the mestizo, leading to exclusion.
AMERICAN DREAM
CITIZENSHIP
Laviera essentially voices a need for the inclusion of the natural rights of people for all people in America: "If you touch me, touch ALL of my people who need attention and societal repair, give the tired and the poor the same attention, AMERICA, touch us ALL with liberty..." the symbols of freedom and happiness exemplified by the American dream should not only be accessible to one group of people as we are all "American."
Hurray for the Riff Raff highlights the affects of having to conform to American citizenship as they state: "Well lately, it's been mighty hard to see/ Just searching for my lost humanity/ I look for you, my friend/ But do you look for me?" For Latinx people, there is a dehumanizing effect of having to adapt to American life. As there is little to no representation for Latinx people in America and their survival hings on conformity, the toll it takes on them metaphysically is very damaging.
Continuing to highlight the toll of American citizenship on Latinx people, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzalez explains "I must choose between the paradox of victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger, or to exist in the grasp of American neurosis, sterilization of the soul and a full stomach." The Mexican people were presented with a choice that seemed to end in a loss either way. American citizenship would mean the loss of a cultural history that symbolized strength for the Chicano at the cost of physical satisfaction.
COMING OF AGE
GENDERED ABUSE
INSTITUTIONALIZED VIOLENCE
Carmen Maria Machado's "The Husband Stitch" reads similarly, yet differently from other coming of age stories. We are introduced to an unnamed protagonist as she, intimately, describes to us her life, from a child with a boy who she grows with through their relationship as it blossoms into marriage. The more that the boy becomes aware of her body, the more she imposes rules on her body. One of the most important rules being about the ribbon around her neck: "You shouldn’t touch it, [she says]. You can’t touch it." This develops into a hyperawareness of the ribbon from her and the boy. Until they grow up and are in bed, married with a child in college, does she let him break this rule: "Resolve runs out of me. I touch the ribbon. I look at the face of my husband, the beginning and end of his desires all etched there." He pulls the ribbon and, to both their misfortunes, her head falls off.
Emil Ferris' "My Favorite Thing Is Monsters" revolves around the 10 year old protagonist, Karen Reyes, and her search for her identity in a world full of monsters, good and evil. The onset of the book describes "the word monster [that] comes from the Latin word ‘monstrum’ which means ‘to show’…there are a lot of things we don’t see everyday that are right under our noses…just maybe–monsters are right under our noses, too." This reflects in the way she is presented to us in the comic, which is also the way she choses to represent herself. Though she interacts with the good monsters, like Franklin, she finds that there are also bad monsters, such as the boys that attempt to rape her, those who "want the world to be scared so that bad monsters can call the shots." She embraces the differences she has from the expectations society placed on her rather than being crippled by them.
MANIFESTOS
The manifesto of El Plan De Aztlán functioned as a call for the Chicano to unite under the nation of Aztlán. This plan focused on three parts for its construction: Nationalism, which was pivital in organizing their forces because it transcends class, religion, politics, and economics; Organizational Goals, which included the uniformity and committment of all to La Raza, economic control, education relevant to Chicanos, institutions that serve the people, self-defense, maintenance of cultural values, and political liberation; and Actions which included the spreading of awareness of the plan, organizing walk-outs in schools on Mexican Independence Day (September 16th), defending the community, and building an independent nation, economy, and political system.
The 13 Point Program is presented as a manifesto from the Young Lords Party platform, declaring publically a call for liberation of all oppressed people. Of the points that were presented in the list, there was an emphasis on the self-determination of Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and Third World people, an end to racism and male chauvinism, and freedom for political and war prisoners.
Pietri speaks on the unfair treatment of Latinx bodies that conformed to the American system: "They never spoke back/ when they were insulted/ They worked/ They never took days off/ that were not on the calendar/ They never went on stike/ without permission/ They worked/ ten days a week/ and were only paid for five." They did as they were told, and yet were still subjected to terrible working conditions and cruelty. The system was not built to support them but to take advantage of them and take all they can.
Esteves continues this theme of unfair treatment of Latinx bodies under the American system in "Blanket Weaver," stating that they "weave us a red of fire and blood/ that taste of sweet plum/ fishing around the memories of the dead/ following a scent wounded/ our spines bleeding with pain." The backs of Latinx people bleed carrying a system that doesn't work to include them and their histories.
Alvarez also emphasizes this through the mother of the Garcia family appreciating the freedom women have in America compared to Dominican Republic, which causes her to not want to move back "to the old country where...she was only a wife and a mother...Better an independent nobody than a high-class houseslave." As machismoism is very prevalent in Latinx culture, the women feel subjugated, even in their own space. The presents an issue that must be fixed in order for a progression as a culture to really happen.
Anzaldua highlights the racialized treatment Latinx people endure at the hands of white people as she states: "Mi pobre madre viuda perdió two thirds of her ganado. A smart gabacho lawyer took the land away mamá hadn't paid taxes. No hablaba inglés, she didn't know how to ask for time to raise the money" (30). The language barrier experienced here is used as a mechanism of displacement in which Americans had taken advantage of.
Moraga speaks on ramifications of a mixed race heritage as she states: "...I was a closeted, light-skinned, mixed-blood Mexican-American, disguised in my father's English last name. Since I seldom opened my mouth, few people questioned my Anglo credentials. But my eyes were open and thirsty and drank in images of students my age, of vatos and viejitas, who could have primos, or tíos, or abuelitas raising their collective fists into a smoggy East Los Angeles skyline" (145). As if having the appearance of one side of your heritage excludes you from the other, Moraga longs for the acceptance and space to participate in both sides.
Machado highlights this attempt of man to conquer the female body through this interaction between her main characters in "The Husband Stitch": "He startles me, then, by running his hand around my throat. I put up my hands to stop him but he uses his strength, grabbing my writsts with one hand as he touches the ribbon with the other...Please, I say. Please don't." The voice of this woman character pleading to be freed echos the voices of Latinx women whose bodies must be protected from the tyranny of men.
Moraga explains the importance of the inclusion of women when it comes to the movement of any people: "...it is historically evident that the female body, like the Chicano people, has been colonized. And any movement to decolonize them must be culturally and sexually specific" (149). The bodies of Latinx women, just as the Chicano people themselves, have been thought of as objects to be conquered so the liberation of both is essential for the progression of Chicano people as a whole.
Here, Piri Thomas voices the sentiments of Latinx people who are fed up with this racialized treatment: "The damn WPA, the damn depression, the damn home relief, the damn poorness, the damn cold, the damn crummy apartments, the damn look on his damn kids, living so damn damned and his not being able to do a damn thing about it" (11). This unhappiness of the status quo represents a want for change in the situation we are placed in, though it may seem hopeless.