Literature Essay on gender and sexuality representations in selected Juiot Diaz's and Sandra Cisneros' short stories
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V I N T A G E C O N T E M P O R A R I E S
VINTAGE BOOKS
A D I V I S I O N O F R A N D O M H O U S E , I N C .
NEW YORK
F I R S T V I N T A G E C O N T E M P O R A R I E S E D I T I O N , M A R C H 1 9 9 2
Copyright @ ry9r by Sandra Ckneros
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc.,
New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited,
Tbronto. Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New York,
i n r 9 9 r .
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission
to reprint previously published material:
ARTE PUBLIco pREss: "Mexican Movies" by Sandra Cisneros was
first published in the Anrericas Retiew, Volume 16, No. 3-4. Reprinted by permission.
TRADITToN MUsIc coMpANy: Excerpt from the song "Ay Te Dejo en
San Antonio" by Santiago Jimenez. Copyright @ by Tiadition Music Co. (BMI).
Reprinted by permission.
Some of the stories in this work were originally published in Arnericas Review,
Grand Street, Humanitarte, Los Angeles Times Magazinc, TIu Saguro, Storl and
The Village Voice Literary Supplement.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cisneros, Sandra.
Woman hollering creek and other stories / Sandra Cisneros. - r st
Vintage contemporaries ed,
p. cm.-(Vintagecontemporaries) "Originally published in hardcover by Random House, Inc., New
York, in r99r"-T.p. verso.
I S B N o - 6 7 9 - 7 3 8 5 6 - 8
r. Mexican Americans-Fiction. z. Mexican-American Border Region-
Fiction. I. Title.
l P S r r s r . l 7 8 W 6 6 r e 9 2 l 8 r 3 ' . 5 4 - d c : o 9 r - 5 8 o o z
C I P
Book design by Susan Shapiro
Manufacturedin the United Sutes of ,\merica c987654
For my mama,
Elvi ra Cordero Anguiano,
who gave me the fierce language.
Y paramipapd,
Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral,
quien me di6 el lenguaje dc la ternura.
Estos cucntitos se los dcdico
con todo mi corazdn.
Itlexicon llovies
It's the one with Pedro Armend6riz in love with his boss's wife,
only she's nothing but trouble and his problem is he's just plain
dumb. I like it when the man starts undressing the lady because
that's when Papa gives us the quarters and sends us to the lobby,
hurry, until they put their clothes back on.
In the lobby there are thick carpets, red red, which if you drag
your feet will make electricity. And velvet curtains with yellow
fringe like a general's shoulders. And a fat velvet rope across the
stairs that means you can't go up there.
You can put a quarter in.a machine in the ladies' bathroom and
get a plastic tic-tac-toe or pink lipstick the color of sugar roses on
birthday cakes. Or you can go out and spend it at the candy counter
for a bag of chunos, or a ham-and-cheese torta, or a box of jujubes.
If you buy the jujubes, save the box because when you're finished
you can blow through it and it sounds just like a burro, which is
fun to do when the movie's on because maybe somebody will answer
you with his luiube box until Papa says quit it.
I like the PgllgJrlfanle movies best. He always sings riding a
horse and wears a big sombrero and never tears the dresses off the
ladies, and the ladies throw flowers from a balcony, and usually
M E X I C A N M O V T E S . r 3
somebody dies, but not pedro Infante because he has to sing the hrppy song ar the end.
Because Kiki's still little, he likes to run up and down the aisles, up and down with the other kids, rike little horses, the way I used to, but now it's my job to make sure he doesn't pick up the candy he finds on the floor and put it in his mouth.
Sometimes somebody's kid climbs up on the stage, and there at the bottom of the screen's a double silhouette, which makes every_ one laugh. And sooner or later a baby starts crying so somebody else can yell iQut saquen a ese nifiol But if it's Kiki, that means me because Papa doesn't move when he's watching a movie and Mama sits with her legs bunched beneath her like an accordion because she's afraid of rats.
Theaters smell like popcorn. we ger ro buy a box with a clown tossing some up in the air and catching it in his mouth with little bubbles saying NuTRrrrous and DElrcrous. Me and Kiki like tossing popcorn up in the air too and laughing when it misses and hits us on the head, or grabbing big bunches in our hands and squishing it into a tiny crumpled pile that fits inside our mouth, and listening to how it squeaks against our teeth, and biting the kernels at the end and spitting them out at each other like watermelon wars.
we like Mexican movies. Even if it's one with too much talking. we just roll ourselves up like a doughnut and sleep, the armrest hard against our head until Mama puts her sweater there. But then the movie ends. The lights go on. somebody picks us up-our shoes and legs heavy and dangling like dead peopl*-carries us in the cold to rhe car that smells rike ashtrays. Black and white, black and white lights behind our closed eyelids, until by now we,re awake but it's nice to go on pretending with our eyes shut because here,s the best part. Mama and papa lift us out of the backseat and carry us upstairs to the third-floor front where we live, take offour shoes and clothes, and cover us, so when we wake up, it's sunday already, and we're in our beds and h"ppy.