ALLENDALE, MICH.¿When David Alvarez struggled to help his students see the Central American subjects of the books he teaches in his courses on Central American Literature, he decided to bring a few of them to class.
Alvarez, an assistant professor of English at Grand Valley State University, traveled to Gutemala this past June to interview Guatemalan writers and common citizens. He was accompanied by Jeff Smith of the Institute for Global Education at the Community Media Center in Grand Rapids. Alvarez, who received a grant for the trip from the Faculty Teaching and Learning Center at GVSU, will use the videotaped interviews in his classes this coming year to give his students a reality-based image of what they are talking about in class.
All literature I teach I do contextually, explaining to students the history, the political, economic and political situations that are described in a story or book, says Alvarez, a native of Gibraltar who is fluent in both English and Spanish. Latin American literature cries out to be contextualized because of the students' lack of knowledge about that region of the world. Plus, all Latin American countries are going through some form of crisis right now, and writers, sensitive souls that they are, are preoccupied with those conflicts an write about them. We need to understand all that.
As an example, Alvarez describes the civil war in Guatemala from 1954 to 1996 that left deep scars in society. Among the interviews he taped is one a representative of the Archdiocese of the Catholic Church, where a clergyman was killed two days after the church released a report about human rights abuses. Another interview features a Mayan woman who had received a death threat for trying to locate family members missing since the war.
There's a palpable climate of fear even though the war is over, Alvarez says. In the states we don't understand this. It will be good for students to hear about this directly from the people who live there.
He adds that the Mayan woman will be a vivid example of a typical character in many books by Central American authors, including the acclaimed and controversial autobiography of Rogoberta Menchu, a Mayan woman who describes Mayan clothing and other customs. Alvarez will show his interview with a Mayan woman when they study this book.
Alvarez is most pleased with a one-hour interview he completed with Adolfo Mendez Vides, a 44-year-old considered to be the best Central American writer in his generation. While not well known in the United States, Vides has just had a novel published by a large Mexican-Spanish publisher and hopes it will be translated into English eventually.
West Michigan residents outside of Alvarez' classroom will benefit from the interviews as well. He and Smith plan to make presentations at the Community Media Center, on public access television, and at area churches and other colleges. They especially want to share the interviews with an estimated 3,000 Mayans in the Grand Rapids and Holland areas who fled the war in Guatemala. Smith has taught courses on Central American history at GVSU and has helped Guatemalans obtain legal and social services.
The local Central American population will really appreciate these interviews, Alvarez insists. In Central America, writers play a social role that they don't here. They are looked to for advice and considered to be politicians.
