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Search - Crossing Vines: A Novel (Chicana Chicano Visions of the Americas, V. 2)

Crossing Vines: A Novel (Chicana Chicano Visions of the Americas, V. 2)
Crossing Vines A Novel - Chicana Chicano Visions of the Americas, V. 2
Author: Rigoberto Gonzalez
"Staying awake through most of the night was a habit don Nico kept from his days as a watchman at the funeral parlor in Monterrey. ... A few hours of sleep were all he needed. ... At sixty-five, an old man like don Nico could put in a hard day's labor in the grape fields and be ready to work the next day with little rest. In the meantime he w...  more »-from Crossing Vines In the grim reality of Southern California's grape fields, even the sun is a dark spot. For the migrant grape pickers in Crossing Vines, Rigoberto González's novel that spans a single workday, the sun is a constant, malevolent force. The characters endure back-breaking, monotonous work as they succumb to the whims of their corrupt bosses. Each minute the sun rises higher in the sky is an eternity. The textures, smells, sights, and emotions of their daily existences engulf the lives of the Mexican laborers. Scarce drinking water, sweltering heat, splintered fingers, contempt for the job, and violence toward one another compose their unflinchingly dark world. In González's brutally honest story, the characters are compelled forward mercilessly by the rising crisis that envelops their interconnected stories. This uncompromisingly thought-provoking tale gives names and faces to the anonymous agricultural laborers, whose lives are like the tangled vines of the fruits of their labor. Not since Tómas Rivera's . . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him has a novel converged on the lives of migrant workers so profoundly. Like Rivera, González employs nostalgia for Mexican tradition as he looks at the family feuds, economic injustices, and racism prevalent in the migrant worker experience.
ISBN-13: 9780806135281
ISBN-10: 080613528X
Publication Date: 6/2003
Pages: 221
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Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 1
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