George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel

The beginning of Chapter 9 illustrates perhaps more clearly than the rest of the book the struggle of Guálinto’s bicultural inner world, describing him as “hating the Gringo one moment with an unreasoning hatred, admiring his literature, his music, his material goods the next. Loving the Mexican with a blind fierceness, then almost despising him for his slow progress in the world” (150). This conflict is akin to unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects, as none of the black-and-white morality of his religious teachings, education, or family/community mores can possibly reconcile the complex emotions he feels towards his own people and the “Gringos” who terrorize and marginalize them.

This conflict is most intensely compounded by Guálinto’s education, which being sourced from the American national curriculum unjustly favors the prevailing white narrative of the nation and of Texas and Mexican relations. Even the well-meaning teachers at Guálinto’s school—who live in Jonesville and know its people and appear to be aware of the distortion in the histories they teach—are powerless to challenge these narratives due to fears of being branded as Communists and losing their jobs. Although Guálinto appears to understand their conundrum when he recognizes Miss Barton’s affinity for his questioning of the text, she is unable to help him also educate his white classmates, as we see in Guálinto’s confrontation with Ed Garloc.

Chapter 11 reintroduces Feliciano’s plotline after a long focus on Guálinto. Since meeting with Don Santos, Feliciano’s shame about his past and the harm he has done has begun to fade. He is now more focused on caring for his family, and as he sees the progress they have made since arriving in Jonesville, largely due to his hard work, he is starting to feel a sense of pride at what he has done. He is beginning to experience something akin to a fulfilled “American Dream.” However, the novel is quick to point out that this outlook is based in perspective: while he remembers the abject poverty that plagued his family throughout his childhood up until Gumersindo’s and his mother’s deaths, and he sees their new home and sense of security as idyllic in comparison, Guálinto sees it as an embarrassingly poor house, hiding from María Elena lest she see where he lives.

Chapter 13 details Guálinto’s first significant encounter with real segregationist racism via the restaurant scene in Harlanburg. Guálinto has a chance to play into the nihilistic opportunism of Don Santos and the Osunas by passing for white and entering the restaurant with María Elena, but in a significant display of bravery, he chooses instead to support his friends and stays outside. Beyond simply showing his loyalty, the scene also plays out as a moment in which he is offered the choice between embracing a “Spaniard” or “Mexicotexan” identity, and he nobly chooses the latter. However, while this appears to his friends to be a truly benevolent gesture, the novel hints that his resolve is not entirely solid, and his motives not entirely driven by loyalty when he sees María Elena—who has chosen her “Spaniard” identity and entered the restaurant—dancing without him: “[…] María Elena was dancing with an older man, not one of the senior party. He thought of the time he had spent practicing dance steps at home with Carmen for the past three weeks, and he felt weak and tired” (174).

Combined with the events of Chapter 12, in which María Elena’s motives for being his girlfriend are shown to be at least mostly out of a desire to cheat off him and better her own grades, the novel hints that Guálinto sides with his friends at least partially as a statement of bitterness against her dishonest affection.