by Marcelo Rodríguez, Associate Librarian for Comparative and International Law, University of Arizona College of Law
Recently, I was invited to be a guest speaker at a Law and Literature Course here at my workplace, the University of Arizona College of Law. As part of our Law Library Team and Professor of Legal Research, the invitation to speak came to my desk almost naturally. Perceptions of the voracious reading habits of librarians permeate even the hallways of academia. Given my close connections with faculty colleagues as well as law students, I was not surprised at all at the speaking request. I have indeed shared with students and colleagues alike my lifelong obsession with reading world fiction and my hilarious story of moving from NYC to Tucson years ago in an RV full of books (think mobile library!). Therefore, I gladly accepted the invitation with one condition: I wanted to discuss Law and Literature in Latin America.
Being in Tucson now for close to six years, I have come to love the place, peoples, food and of course, the beautiful sunsets unique to the Sonoran Desert region. However, I still come face-to-face with moments and situations, especially in academia, in which there is a misconception or lack of interest in contextualizing or even being aware of the place that we inhabit, with the historical moments which have shaped this area, and how it continues to evolve. As someone who is not from here and an outsider in multiple ways, I take it as my responsibility to center myself on where I am and to use every opportunity to bring those conversations to the fore. Furthermore, at the Cracchiolo Law Library, we take our mission of educating and centering our local communities at heart as it is exemplified by the work of Teresa Miguel-Stearns, Law Library Director on the University of Arizona’s Land Grant Designation and its impact on the people living here for millennia.
Therefore, for my Law and Literature guest lecture, I intentionally chose three short stories by Latin American writers navigating legal and societal considerations on control, gender, morality, guilt, or censorship. Reading Latin America is a conscious act to connect our law students in a Border area dividing Anglo and Latin; Common and Civil Law; Us and Them. I believe the stories helped students to be aware of borders and divisions in order—not to divide us, but to take the “other” as an opportunity to connect us even further.
These are the three stories I chose for discussion:
- Rosario Castellanos (México), “Lección de cocina” (“Cooking Lesson”), in Album de Familia (Family Album), 1972.
- Clarice Lispector (Brazil), “O crime do professor de matemática” (“The Crime of the Mathematics Professor”), in Laços de Familia (Family Ties), 1960.
- Luisa Valenzuela (Argentina) “Los censores” (“The Censors”), in Los Censores (The Censors), 1979.
Besides analyzing the text themselves, I wanted to give students some important context as to why I chose these stories and what specific historical moments in their countries as well as in Latin America as a whole these stories were set in. In preparation for the class, the students were asked to provide written reflections to help me prepare my guest lecture. Their reactions ranged from apathy to some of the writers’ styles to full identification with the characters and seeing tremendous parallels with the students’ personal lives nowadays. Immediately, I understood that context was crucial and my guest lecture had to center around the external layers giving life to these stories.
First, I began my conversation with Geography: nothing like maps to help law students situate themselves as well as the materials we’re about to cover. When it comes to Latin America as a region, geography is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle. How do you define the boundaries of Latin America on a map? Do you include the Caribbean islands? Do you focus only on Spanish and Portuguese speaking America? Would you also include French and Dutch speaking America? Who is in and who is out, geographically speaking?
In relation to these three stories, it’s important to keep in mind that they are all speaking from three countries both at the margin and centers of the idea of Latin America as a geographical region. In the context of Mexico, it exemplifies the Border of Latin America in all its complexity and chaotic as well as ever-changing nature. Given its unique linguistic identity, Brazil occupies another Border which disconnects the country from the rest of Latin America. However, it’s the same linguistic border which connects the country with other Lusophone countries around the world. Lastly, geographically-speaking, Argentina is at the edge of the Border of Latin America and Antarctica with the city of Ushuaia at the center of that frontier. Despite these peripheral contexts, you learn from these short stories that each country is centrally located in national narratives which evoke complicated and contradictory feelings of being inside and outside, center or border.
Due to the legal nature of the course and the readings, it’s incredibly important to talk about yet another relevant piece of the context puzzle: Legal Systems. Teaching a guest lecture such as this one in a law school in the United States means that the students are, for the most part, unfamiliar with civil law, which predominates in Latin America and around the world. On a theoretical level, civil law systems work with extensive and detailed oriented codes attempting to cover every single area there is to know about a particular area of the law. In the context of legalities and the presence or hand of the law in these stories, you do notice a pressing need to define, to categorize roles and functions which, in very general terms, tends to go to the deductive nature of civil law systems.
Another incredibly important contextual layer to consider is History. These stories were all written in the 1960s and 1970s, and the decades they depict were politically charged: world geopolitics threatened to use Latin America as their playground; and military juntas, dictatorships, and authoritarian regimes of all political strides dominated the political landscape of the region. Through the renowned Boom Latinoamericano, important writers such as Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Julio Cortázar (Argentina), and Carlos Fuentes (México) gained worldwide recognition and their works served as, at times, the sole testimony of the atrocities of the times. Furthermore, the region gave birth to the sub-genre of the Dictator Novel, which depicts the role of authoritative and abusive leaders which have plagued Latin America throughout history. Important authors in the genrea include include Augusto Roa (Paraguay), Alejo Carpentier (Cuba), and in more recent times, Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).
The last layer of context which I decided to discuss with students centered around the idea of the Other in Latin America. Personally, I believe it is a layer which does not get the importance it deserves within scholarly and literary circles in Latin America itself. The construction of societies and legal systems in Latin America was primarily based on European conceptions of nation-states which thrive on family-like understanding who is in and who is out. These short stories vividly reflect on these issues and how the law in the countries reinforces these ideas in their treatment of women, political dissidents or people who dare to diverge from the preconceived of who they are supposed to be and their role in their respective societies. Beyond the stories themselves, it’s important to be aware that the three women who wrote these short stories saw in their own lives the struggle to authentically be yourself in these societies. From her wealthy background, Castellanos wrote mostly about indigenous peoples in the state of Oaxaca and women who recently acquired their right to vote in the 1950s. Lispector was the ultimate outsider in a Brazilian society and military government which was uncomfortable with her immigrant background, Jewish heritage and “opinionated” demeanor; throughout her life, she was regularly accused of writing like a man. Finally, Valenzuela fought to gain recognition not only from oppressing political forces in Argentina, but also from the same revolutionary forces which were not so accommodating to the struggles of women and their role in any movement.
Can you think of other important layers to contextualize Law and Literature? Can you think of other important examples of Law and Literature in Latin America?
This Blog contains entries by members of the International Association of Law Libraries on issues germane to the Association’s areas of focus. Views expressed in an individual entry only represent the views of the author, and not those of the International Association of Law Libraries or the author’s employer.