The Hidden Politics of Home: Crash Course Latin American Literature #8

0:00 What makes a house a home?

0:01 For me, it’s photos of my ancestors, anything to

0:03 do with La Virgen de Guadalupe, and of course, food—

0:07 pupusas, menudo, yucca frita…

0:09 But I got off-topic.

0:10 Houses can be much more than just a place to decorate,

0:12 sleep, and eat your mom’s empanadas.

0:14 Hi!

0:15 I'm Curly Velasquez, and this is Crash Course Latin American Literature.

0:18 [THEME MUSIC] A person’s home can tell you a lot about them.

0:26 Their art, their knickknacks, the way they arrange the furniture—

0:29 it can all give you hints about their innermost self.

0:32 So it makes sense that in literature,

0:34 where characters live can be key to who they are.

0:37 But not only that!

0:38 Houses in Latin American literature are portals into diverse identities,

0:42 cultures, and even political conflicts.

0:45 The trick is knowing how to read them that way.

0:48 Let’s look at Sandra Cisneros’s 1984 novel, “The House on Mango Street.”

0:53 It tells the story of twelve-year-old Esperanza Cordero

0:57 and her family in a working-class Chicago neighborhood.

1:00 Having grown up in an apartment,

1:01 Esperanza is thrilled to put down her roots in her family’s new home.

1:05 “I knew then I had to have a house,” she says.

1:08 “A real house.

1:09 One I could point to.”

1:11 But her family’s dilapidated house is not the vibe.

1:14 And also, it’s not really about the house.

1:17 Or, at least: not only.

1:18 See, Esperanza’s discomfort in her house mirrors

1:21 her discomfort with her own identity.

1:24 Like Cisneros herself, Esperanza is Chicana,

1:27 which means she comes from a Mexican family but was born in the U.S.

1:32 So her identity exists somewhere between the two places and cultures.

1:36 She tells us, “At school they say my name funny as if

1:39 the syllables were made out of tin and hurt

1:41 the roof of your mouth.”

1:43 Like the house on Mango Street,

1:44 Esperanza’s Spanish name feels like the wrong fit

1:47 for the person she wants to be.

1:49 On top of all that, Esperanza inherited her name from her great-grandmother—

1:53 but she doesn’t want to inherit the life her great-grandmother lived.

1:56 She was married against her will as a teenager—

1:59 a lack of agency based on her gender.

2:01 And when Esperanza imagines this,

2:04 she pictures her ancestor trapped within the walls of her home:

2:07 “She looked out the window her whole life,

2:10 the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.”

2:13 Notice how Esperanza makes the connection

2:16 between her great-grandmother and countless

2:18 other women looking out their windows.

2:20 With this inside-looking-out image, she’s

2:23 evoking a long-standing association between houses

2:26 and homes with women and femininity.

2:30 And by rejecting her house,

2:32 Esperanza is also rejecting her picture of traditional femininity.

2:36 Throughout the book, the house on Mango Street literally hangs over Esperanza’s

2:40 head as she contemplates all the pieces of

2:43 her identity and who she wishes to become.

2:45 By the end of the novel,

2:46 a now fourteen-year-old Esperanza finds a new way to define herself:

2:51 as a storyteller.

2:52 Her writing lets her escape from the house’s grasp and create a new,

2:56 more comfortable “home in the heart.”

2:59 She knows someday she’ll grow up and leave for real—

3:02 but she also recognizes that the house will always be a part of her story.

3:06 Now, houses in literature don’t only represent our personal identities.

3:10 They can also represent larger political and national identities, too.

3:14 And I’m not just talking about sticking a sign

3:16 in your yard to endorse Dolly Parton for president.

3:18 Though anyone who gives free books to kids has my vote.

3:22 Let’s get the Curly Notes on Isabel Allende’s 1982 novel

3:25 “La Casa de los Espíritus,” “The House of the Spirits,”

3:29 which uses the house as a symbol to address the politics of her native Chile.

3:34 Isabel Allende is no stranger to politics.

3:37 Her father’s cousin, Salvador Allende, was the President of Chile

3:40 until he was assassinated by Augusto Pinochet’s

3:43 coup and her family was forced to flee the country.

3:46 So, she knew firsthand the challenges of sharing this house we call a nation—

3:50 especially when our fellow citizens and

3:52 leaders… aren’t always the best roommates.

3:54 “The House of the Spirits” focuses on the Trueba family,

3:57 who live in an unnamed country usually understood to be Allende’s own Chile.

4:02 And the action moves between not just one house, but two,

4:06 as a way of portraying the conflicting

4:08 political perspectives in Chile at the time.

4:10 The “big house on the corner” is built for the Trueba matriarch,

4:14 Clara, by her husband Esteban.

4:16 Clara represents the liberal left-wing, preaching

4:20 ideals of equality, justice, and respect for everyone.

4:24 She presides over the big house,

4:25 which is filled with students, artists,

4:28 spiritualists— and even a few literal spirits.

4:31 Sounds kinda like my house, to be honest.

4:33 Esteban, on the other hand, is a wealthy,

4:36 right-wing senator who exploits his workers,

4:39 hits his wife, rigs elections through threats and coercion,

4:42 and is just generally an all around

4:44 bummer of a guy.

4:45 While his wife presides over the family home, Esteban’s domain is Tres Marías,

4:51 a hacienda in the countryside, which he runs like a dictator.

4:55 So the vibes of both houses are very different— even down to the design.

5:00 Clara constructs a world of freedom and imagination with long,

5:05 twisting passageways and whimsical stairways to nowhere,

5:08 while Esteban furnishes the Tres Marías with heavy,

5:12 severe furniture that mirrors his politics.

5:14 But the family drama doesn’t stop with the blueprints— and let me tell you,

5:18 it’s juicy.

5:19 Just like houses are often handed down through generations,

5:22 for the Truebas, political tensions are handed down, too.

5:26 Esteban’s grandson inherits his grandfather’s politics and violent tendencies.

5:31 He goes on to become a police officer and later a colonel,

5:34 playing a key role in torturing liberal

5:36 revolutionaries— including his own cousin, Alba.

5:40 And you thought you and your primos had beef!

5:41 Alba, in contrast, carries on her grandmother Clara’s liberal traditions.

5:47 After the conservative party seizes control of

5:49 the government through a military coup,

5:51 Alba uses the twisting passageways and secret

5:54 doors of her grandmother’s house to harbor

5:57 socialist fugitives.

5:58 Notice how purposeful Allende is about placing her

6:00 female characters right in the middle of the

6:03 nation’s political drama.

6:04 She even starts off the novel by introducing us to Clara’s older sister,

6:08 Rosa, who is all things

6:09 traditionally feminine— graceful, beautiful, obsessed with romance novels,

6:13 and on her way to embroider the largest tablecloth known to man.

6:17 As you do.

6:18 But then tragedy strikes:

6:19 Rosa dies after drinking poisoned brandy meant for her politician father.

6:24 From that moment on, Allende shows us that—

6:27 despite their exclusion from formal political leadership—

6:30 women affect and are affected by politics, in the sphere of the home and beyond.

6:35 I won’t spoil the book’s ending for you,

6:37 but let’s just say there’s hope— for the Trueba family and for Chile.

6:41 Now that focus on family [phone buzzes] Oh, it’s my mom….

6:48 “Mom.

6:48 Sí.

6:49 ¿Y qué pasó con la vecina?

6:52 ¡No!

6:53 *jazz music* That was good and juicy!

6:57 Like I was saying, that focus on family brings me to my last example.

7:01 Families aren’t always a husband, a wife, and 2.5 kids.

7:05 They can look a lot of different ways.

7:08 And literature helps to broaden the picture of what home and family life can be.

7:12 Argentine writer Camila Sosa Villada explores a

7:15 broad view of family in her 2019 novel “Las Malas,” “Bad Girls.”

7:20 It follows a group of trans women who find community in “a large,

7:25 pink, two-story building

7:26 that looked a little run-down but welcomed them with open arms.”

7:30 This “fabled pink house” in Córdoba,

7:33 Argentina is run by 178-year-old Tía Encarna—

7:37 picking up on some magical realism vibes?

7:39 And it serves as a landing place for young

7:41 women who have been turned away by their

7:43 biological families.

7:45 At the pink house, the women find sisters in their housemates,

7:48 and an auntie in Tía Encarna.

7:50 And when Tía Encarna finds an abandoned infant in the park and brings him home,

7:54 he, too, becomes part of their family.

7:56 But despite the safety they find in each other,

7:58 the residents still face the dangers of

8:01 the AIDS epidemic and their transphobic society.

8:03 As the novel goes on,

8:05 the condition of Tía Encarna's pink house mirrors their own:

8:07 becoming vandalized, choked by vegetation, and falling into disrepair.

8:11 In this way,

8:12 the house itself becomes a reflection of the women’s ongoing plight.

8:16 In Sosa Villada’s words,

8:17 the pink house is “the queerest boardinghouse in the world.”

8:20 One that complicates our preconceived notions about home, family, and belonging.

8:25 In literature, like in life, houses can hold all the

8:28 nooks and crannies of who we are as people, cultures, and nations.

8:32 And in some ways, sitting down to read a book

8:34 is a little like an invitation into an author’s home.

8:37 So we can all become chismosos!

8:39 You can peer out the window of Sandra Cisneros’s childhood home,

8:43 meet Isabel Allende’s family of politicians and revolutionaries,

8:47 or stay up late talking with Sosa Villada and her friends.

8:50 And when you’re done visiting, you can say your goodbyes, close the book,

8:54 and return to your own house… with your own family drama…

8:57 but also a new perspective about how other people live.

9:01 Personally, I can’t wait to get back to my mom’s empanadas.

9:03 Next time, we’re diving even deeper into family bonds.

9:06 See you then.

9:06 Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Latin American Literature,

9:10 which was filmed at the Carlos Hernandez Studio

9:12 in Indianapolis and was made with the

9:15 help of all of these homebodies.

9:16 If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever,

9:20 you can join our community on Patreon.

9:22 Oh, and if you're interested in learning about some

9:24 of the topics covered in this episode,

9:26 we pulled together a playlist you can dig into.