El Paso del Norte: Stories on the Border

By Richard Yañez and Richard Yáñez

Book Overview

The Chicano characters in Richard Yanez's debut story collection live in El Paso's Lower Valley but inhabit a number of borders-between two countries, two languages, and two cultures, between... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 087417533X
• ISBN13: 9780874175332
• Release Date: March 2003
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Length: 152 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.8" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

unique insight into tejano border life

although i'm from califas i appreciate the high volume of chicano lit coming from the texas valley. yanez is a good addition to the growing shelf with this set of stories about life on the el paso/ juarez border. although this territory is not new yanez's vision is. he writes about the loss of innocence and about the people who must now struggle with the metaphysical borders that affect all of us no matter who we are and what our backgound is. happiness, disappointment, joy, grief, family and society are but a few of the pressures and desires that make us human and that the author explores through the triumph and downfall of us all: language.

A Journey Worth Taking

While one might simply be satisfied with his intimate and artful texturing of images and people on the border, Yañez takes his stories to a higher level, layering time, place and character with spiritual journeys through struggles that are as specific to the border region as they are universally familiar. Through a palette of characters-a coming of age pre-teen, a widowed tire shop owner, a directionless and embittered high school graduate, and a half-sane woman on welfare, Yañez captures the dignity of a community by providing his characters with an equal amount of fallibility and promise. Throughout these stories humor is as ever-present as sadness, and in the end, Yañez consistently leaves us with subtle messages of hope.

A Poignant, Powerful Debut Collection

A few years ago, I read the short story, "Lucero's Mkt.," in Bilingual Review. I didn't know the author but the story moved me with its powerful, poignant portrait of two lost souls: a woman who had lost her mind (known in the neighborhood as, "La Loquita") and Rafael, the lonely, owner of the tiendita. When I started to read Richard Yañez's debut collection, "El Paso del Norte: Stories on the Border," I was delighted when I came upon "Lucero's Mkt." It sat happily nestled among the other borderland stories in this slim, eloquent and vibrant collection. Yañez has a gift: he can bring to life one region in Texas (near the Mexican border) but he doesn't write the same story over and over again. The characters range across the map of Latino experiences: undocumented immigrants, pochos, young, old, male, female, middle-class, indigent. Yañez never falls in the trap known as bathos. He paints an honest picture of life on the border without pulling punches. But he also shows respect for the people he writes about even those who are riddled with imperfections. This is a very fine, accomplished book. I highly recommend it.