PALABRAS: Award-Winning Author Helena Maria Viramontes Delves Into Love and Chicanos' Impact on Los Angeles

This article is part of Palabras, the Latin Post Latino Author Series.

Fiction sometimes rises from experience and personal understanding; it amasses amid the memories of generations of Chicano families raised in East Los Angeles and grows around the fervor of familial love only words can attempt to capture.

Helena Maria Viramontes, critically acclaimed author and professor, reinforces this belief with her mournful and moving publications.

Believe it or not, Viramontes "slipped" into fiction writing. She never set her sights on journalism or novel writing because she didn't know it was an option or a career. She was raised during the insurrectional 1960s and 1970s, both decades riddled with rousing activism that moved through streets and college campuses.

Conversations on Chicano rights, black rights, civil rights and women's rights were contagious, and peer-driven dialogue challenged and nurtured the intellect of the young people of that era. According to Viramontes, arts played an essential role, compelling the consciousness, the policies and the principles in these movements. And it was the artist who taught the public that activism had many forms. But, even as they stood on the cusp of revolution, that generation, particularly people of color, felt "locked in" and thought their lives were based on serendipity.

"The Moths and Other Stories," "Paris Rats in E.L.A.," "Under the Feet of Jesus" and "Their Dogs Came with Them" came after Viramontes graduated from college, after she gained a political consciousness, and after she'd submerged herself into the bustling and well-stocked Latino's Writers Association, which acquainted her with writers such as poet and founding editor of Tia Chucha Press Luis Rodriguez. Each of her publications demonstrated a fusion of alter egos and characters of unique design.

"When I first began reading, I never read stories that reflected us: me, my mother or my sisters. And it used to keep me up at night. It almost used to haunt me because I used to think, 'These women, they've scarified so much for us, to take care of us, and who noticed that? And who pays attention to that beauty and strength of love? Who pays attention to that?' And that's when I began," Viramontes said during an interview with Latin Post.

"Purely out of a sense of love, I began writing stories, trying to reflect the lives and the feelings of my sisters and my mother. That's what motivated me and inspired me. And, then, moving beyond that and transcending borders, I thought about other women and other mothers and other children."

Her stories force attention to the untold truths of ignored people, neglected voices and exploited bodies. They focus on the visibility and history of the Mexican and Chicano population of Los Angeles, and they capture the tune of unsung, beautiful individuals who are never represented or celebrated in writing. Women, like Viramontes' sisters: married women, women in the workforce, and women who happen to be students; women who love, support and repair.

Viramontes shared that bursting love, the kind that she has for her loved ones, must be contained in some way. Otherwise, if it isn't restrained it can be damaging. She explained, "You can feel that love so much that it's almost detrimental, if you don't do something with it. That's the feeling that I was having for all these neglected voices."

She writes about the past to document the foggy history surrounding the Chicano contribution to Los Angeles Freeway and the human cost involved. She dwells in the past with her writing because her family's history is aligned with the history of Los Angeles. Her grandfather arrived at the turn of the century, and her oldest aunt was born in 1904 in Los Angeles. That area is one that she frequently writes about. It's where her mother grew up, where her aunts grew up, and where she still has roots.

"Their Dogs Came with Them," a novel that was 17 years in the making, was an arduous affair. It was a dark novel, and a painful experience that focused on "displacement and mental illness, homelessness and the ungodliness" involved in the construction of the freeway in Los Angeles. And "Under the Feet of Jesus" is a novel about access, sexuality, power and a forbidden barn.

"It was the most wonderful experience writing 'Under the Feet of Jesus'. These characters were so generous to me. I didn't feel like I had to make things up. They were just moving and I could see them, and I heard them, and I could see them talking, and I could feel their skin. They were really just wonderful," Viramontes said.

"I'd written about 50 pages as part of MFA thesis, and I showed it to one of my advisers, and she read it and just loved it, but she said something was missing. And I asked, 'What is it?' And she said, 'Plot.' But, the barn was striking. I took my computer, and I just kept thinking, 'The barn ... what is it about the barn?' And then I thought about the dismantling; perfect abandoning the family and Estrella wanting to make money."

The author cites her own experience picking grapes near Fresno each summer for extra money. And she looked to the stories of her husband, who was a migrant farm worker, working his way through Texas, Arkansas, and then Michigan, following the crops.

Viramontes respects the craft and therefore takes her teaching at Cornell Universe very seriously. Whether an author has been published or not, she salutes anyone who yields the language necessary to extract and translate the questions, feelings, thoughts and curiosities in their heart, soul and mind because she's walked their moccasins.

Additionally, she knows she must practice the same sense of honesty and work ethic that she teaches. For her, writing is part of teaching, and she's always learning something new, even from her students.

"Young writers don't always understand the great visions they have. Some of them don't understand what it means to be honest to their own voice because they're veracious readers and they want to sound like [famous voices]," Viramontes said.

"It's very exciting to see young people come in and introduce some marvelous work. Everyone has his or her own stories, and everyone has his or her battles. And it's almost a political battle to write a good character out. What they have to practice is empathy, because once you practice empathy, it also transitions into your life, because as writers write, they also become better people."

Viramontes is working on a book that's like "Their Dogs Came with Them" in vision. The book "Cemetery Boys" hosts an unrepressed choir of voices. The novel is multigenerational and deals with WWII, the Iraq War, and the Vietnam War. The book will share the story of what happens to people who are in war -- if they survive it. She expects, however, "Cemetery Boys" won't take quite as long to write as "Their Dogs Came With Them."

"'Their Dogs Came with Them,' took approximately 17 years to write, and I simply do not have that time anymore. I was hoping to get a draft done by the end of August, but it's not going to happen. So, hopefully, I get a draft done by December, but that's only a draft," Viramontes said.

The author also has another book "in the wings." It is a book about the young and poor girls, primarily black, Chicana and Mexican, who were sent to the draconian Ventura Reformatory School for Girls back in the 1940s.