Beyond El Barrio by Adrian Burgos & Adrian Burgos & Frank Guridy & Frank Guridy

Author:Adrian Burgos & Adrian Burgos & Frank Guridy & Frank Guridy [Burgos, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2010-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

Yolanda turns toward the armoire in the room and retrieves several dresses, one of them a wedding dress, and continues: “Se t’olvido algo… . Rosa, yo estaba equivocada. Vete con Ignacio. Porque la mujer tiene que esta a lado del hombre que ama. No importa que tenga que dejar la familia” [You forgot something… . Rosa, I was wrong. Go with Ignacio. A woman must be with the man she loves. Even if it means she must leave her family]. At this moment, Betty’s father, Ignacio, enters the house and speaks to Betty: “Did you understand what she said?” Betty nods her head as Yolanda approaches closer, cupping Betty’s head in her hands, saying: “Tú eres fuerte, mi Rosa. Lucha por el hombre que amas” [You are strong, my Rosa. Fight for the man you love]. Betty replies, “I will,” as the show cuts to a commercial break.

In the closing scene of the episode, Betty stands on the outskirts of the village watching an eagle land on a motor scooter in the distance; it is same scooter she saw in her vision of Henry. Her father approaches and she says to him, “I’m gonna fight for Henry. If I don’t, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.” Ignacio affirms her choice and then delivers some bad news to Betty, informing her that he will not be able to return to the United States with them, as his visa was not approved. Betty insists that they all stay behind with him, to which Ignacio states firmly, “Oh, no, you are going home, Betty. This is your future. I left my family once, too. Don’t be afraid. You’re strong, m’ija . Just like your mother.” They embrace, tearfully, and the camera pans from their bodies to a shot of the eagle taking flight overhead.

This sequence of scenes depicts the longing for the absent mother and the actual return to the motherland as necessary steps in the young Latina protagonist’s quest for romántic fulfillment. The interplay between heterosexual romántic desire and matrilineal ties is clear: Betty’s desire for and pursuit of (her vision of) Henry leads her to a moment of connection with her grandmother, which in turn provides her with a directive that strengthens her resolve to “fight for” her romántic desire. But this resolution is possible only because Betty assumes the place of her mother (and not simply in the overt Oedipal ways the ending of the scene suggests). In the scene between Yolanda and Betty, both granddaughter and grandmother unite by replaying and revising a memory of the missing mother; the redemption and insight the women gain from this shared memory relies on, indeed requires, Rosa’s absence. While the young Latina daughter and aging Latina grandmother can move forward as a result of this exchange, Rosa must remain, to echo the curandera’s prediction, “stuck” in the realm of memory.

Betty’s grandmother emerges here not simply as someone who benefits, like Betty, from the memory of Rosa, but as the

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