Alburquerque by Rudolfo Anaya

First published: 1992

Type of plot: Magical Realism

Time of work: 1992

Locale: Albuquerque, New Mexico

Principal Characters:

• Abrán González, a twenty-one-year-old former Golden Gloves boxing champion who is now a first-year student at the University of New Mexico
• Ben Chávez, a writer and teacher of writing at the University of New Mexico
• Frank Dominic, a wealthy attorney who is running for mayor and who has plans to turn Albuquerque into a city of canals and casinos
• Marisa Martínez, the beautiful and honest mayor of Albuquerque, who opposes Dominic’s plan
• Lucinda Córdova, a nurse at the hospital where Abrán’s mother dies
• Jose Calabasa, a Santo Domingo Indian and Vietnam veteran who is Abrán’s friend
• Walter Johnson, a wealthy developer and candidate for mayor

The Novel

Alburquerque is Anaya’s exploration of the ethnically and culturally diverse world of New Mexico in the 1990’s. The book focuses on the conflict between the heritage of the past and the challenges to it posed by economic growth unscrupulously promoted by developers and politicians. In its structure, the novel parallels a young man’s search for the identity of his father to the city’s search for a sense of community amid divisive political and ethnic tensions. Anaya’s spelling of the city’s name in the title reflects the city’s history; according to legend, a gringo stationmaster dropped the first “r” from the town’s name “in a move,” Anaya says, “that symbolized the emasculation of the Mexican way of life.”

Near death from cancer, Cynthia Johnson, a highly respected New Mexico painter, sends for Abrán González, a former Golden Gloves boxing champion who is now a college student, telling him that he is the son she gave up for adoption twenty-one years ago. Intensely proud of his Mexicanness and of the culture of the Barelas barrio where he was reared by his adoptive parents, Abrán is shocked to learn that he has an Anglo mother and naturally wants to know who his father is. By the time he arrives at the hospital, however, Cynthia is too weak to speak, and she dies without revealing the identity of her lover, a secret she confided to no one, not even her parents. Abrán turns for help and companionship to Lucinda Córdova, a nurse who had been close to Cynthia during her final days and to whom he is deeply attracted. Together, they begin a search for the identity of Abrán’s father.

This quest takes Abrán first to one of Cynthia’s high school classmates, Frank Dominic, who is now a wealthy lawyer running for mayor on a platform of legalized gambling and commercial development. Dominic promises to use his resources to find Abrán’s father, but only if Abrán agrees to return to the ring for a fight to be held as a part of an elaborate celebration Dominic has scheduled to kick off his campaign.

Drawn into the orbit of power, Abrán succumbs—but only once—to the charms of the present mayor, Marisa Martínez, a beautiful and highly capable woman whose election was in large part the result of Cynthia’s support. Unaware of Abrán’s intimacy with Marisa, Lucinda takes him to northern New Mexico to meet her parents in the small village where they live. Dominic, furious when he learns that Abrán has broken training, arranges for Lucinda to be told about Abrán’s infidelity, causing Lucinda to break off their relationship.

Additional complication results from Dominic’s attempts to convince the Indian pueblos to sell their water rights to supply enough water for the canals envisioned in his urban development plan. Abrán’s friend Jose Calabasa has returned to his pueblo to try to dissuade the council from selling out, but he is unsuccessful. Discouraged and depressed, he awakens after a two-day binge to learn that it is the day of Abrán’s fight. Having promised to be there, Jose rushes back to Albuquerque. After a series of wildly comic adventures, he learns that a lawyer from Santa Fe has been trying to get in touch with Abrán about one of Cynthia’s paintings, which may depict Abrán’s father. Jose remembers having seen the painting at the house of Ben Chávez, a writer and teacher at the university who was another of Cynthia’s high school classmates. Rushing there, Jose confronts Ben, who admits to being Abrán’s father. Hoping to reveal Ben’s secret to Abrán and make it unnecessary for him to go through with the fight, Jose rushes to the convention center where the fight is being held. Lucinda, having talked with Marisa and forgiven Abrán, is also rushing to the convention center. She arrives to find that Jose has been badly beaten trying to get to Abrán. As he is being taken to a waiting ambulance, Jose manages to tell Lucinda that Ben Chávez is Abrán’s father.

Yet the match has already started, and Abrán is taking a bad beating. It is not until the end of the ninth round that Lucinda is able to make her way to ringside, where she is joined by Ben, and together they tell Abrán the truth. Still, he decides to continue the fight although he no longer needs Dominic’s help. Inspired by the discovery of his father’s identity and the return of Lucinda, Abrán makes an incredible comeback, knocking out his opponent in the tenth round and giving the people of Albuquerque the hero they need. Dominic’s plans to change the city collapse, and both Abrán and the city have found who they really are.

The Characters

Abrán has always been an outsider in the Mexican community in which he was reared. Because his skin was lighter, he was teased and harassed by his classmates. He began fighting, first on the playground and later in the ring, to prove that he was as good a Mexican as any of the other boys in the barrio. When he discovers that his mother is an Anglo, his sense of identity is shaken, and he is driven to find his father. Uncomfortable in the world of power, wealth, and glamour, Abrán instinctively recognizes his proper place in the mountains of northern New Mexico. He is drawn to their “pure light” and their traditional Mexican culture, and it is here that he and Lucinda plan to settle down, rear a family, and open a much-needed health clinic.

Ben Chávez, the writer and teacher, is a partly autobiographical version of the author and is the most fully realized of the novel’s characters. While still in high school, Chávez was injured in a street fight and thus was hospitalized when Cynthia Johnson gave birth to his son. More comfortable with his fictional characters than with Abrán, the son he has fathered, Ben is working on a novel, which he feels compelled to write, about his love for Cynthia. He is an observer rather than a man of action, and it is largely through his consciousness that the reader understands and evaluates the other characters.

Frank Dominic, the son of a hardworking shoemaker of indefinite ethnic background, is one of the two thoroughly unsympathetic characters and the focus of the novel’s pointed and often personal political satire. He is interested only in gaining power and in self-aggrandizement. An expert on image-building, Dominic has tried to link himself with the old Spanish blood in New Mexico; he married a woman who is supposed to be distantly related to the original duke of Albuquerque, and he affects a phony good-old-boy style that Ben finds offensive despite the fact that they have known each other since childhood. A person whose only loyalty is to himself, Dominic uses people ruthlessly and even bets against his own fighter, Abrán, in the big fight he has arranged. At the end of the novel, however, his empire crumbles; despite his extensive knowledge of the history of Albuquerque, he has no feel for its people or their heritage. His attempt to change the city into something it is not grows out of his own need for power and recognition, not out of the spirit and character of the people.

Walter Johnson is the other unsympathetic character. He first came to Albuquerque nearly dead from tuberculosis but was nursed back to health by Vera, whom he eventually marries. As he gains wealth and power, though, her Jewish background turns out to be a detriment to his acceptance by Albuquerque society. He buys a Spanish genealogy for Vera and gains entrance to the country-club circle to which he aspires, but he lacks an heir. Vera, in desperation, has an affair with her gynecologist, never revealing to Walter that Cynthia is not his daughter. When Cynthia becomes pregnant and Walter learns that her lover is a Mexican, he insists that she put the child up for adoption and that neither she nor Vera ever have any contact with it.

Lucinda Córdova is selfless and committed to the plain, simple, honest values of her upbringing in the remote and isolated villages of northern New Mexico. She nursed Cynthia in her last illness and feels an immediate bond with Abrán. After an idyllic week with Abrán at her parents’ home in the north, she feels totally committed to him, and when she learns of Abrán’s infidelity, she is shocked and profoundly hurt. Nevertheless, she overcomes her hurt and takes her place at his side when he needs her at the fight.

Marisa Martínez, the mayor of Albuquerque, is talented, beautiful, tough, and an excellent mayor. She is divorced and content to live alone; however, her powerful sexuality is roused by Abrán’s physicality and youth. She refuses to pull out of the campaign when Dominic arranges for the publication of nude photographs, taken by a detective that Dominic hired, of Marisa and Abrán together.

Critical Context

Alburquerque brings Anaya’s history of his people and of New Mexico up to the present. The history begins with the first and most famous novel, Bless Me, Ultima (1972), and continues in Heart of Aztlán (1976) and Tortuga (1979), between which and Alburquerque there is a lapse of some twenty years. It contains the elements for which Anaya has become best known—the celebration of the Mexican heritage of the Southwest, including its folklore and its deep commitment to family, to the land, and to the sense of mystery beyond the reach of science to explain. As does Heart of Aztlán, Alburquerque makes use of Old Testament typology; Clemente Chávez, the protagonist of Heart of Aztlán, leads the workers in a strike against the railroad, much as Moses led his people out of bondage, and Abrán, his grandson, is the Abraham who will be the founder of a new nation of chosen people, people of mixed blood.

The literary influence most apparent in this novel is that of the school of Magical Realism, an influence that places Anaya in the company of many distinguished Latin American writers. Perhaps equally important is the influence of a number of New Mexico writers who have anticipated various themes developed in Alburquerque. Leslie Silko, in her well-known novel Ceremony (1977), developed the theme of the person of mixed blood as the progenitor of a race better suited to the needs of the future than people of “pure” blood. Silko’s sense that it is the storytellers who will find the answers to the problems of humankind, who will create out of the materials of the past stories to defeat the powers of the destroyers who threaten the future, represents a somewhat mystical faith in the power of art similar to that developed by Anaya in Alburquerque. The influence of Frank Waters can be seen in Anaya’s depiction of life in the Mexican villages of the north and in his sensitivity to the spiritual as well as the physical beauties of the land. The influence of N. Scott Momaday is apparent in Anaya’s treatment of the rituals and ceremonies of Indian and Mexican life as well as in the theme of the creative power of the word, a theme that is central to the story and structure of Alburquerque.

In this novel, Anaya takes his place in the forefront not only of Latino writers but also of all those writers who celebrate the beauty of the people and the land of the American Southwest.

Bibliography

Anaya, Rudolfo. Interview by R. S. Sharma. Prairie Schooner 68 (Winter, 1994): 177-187. The interview focuses on the meaning of Chicano writing and literature. Anaya specifies which cultural tradition he prefers readers associate him with, and comments on Chicanismo as a bilingual culture and the Chicano literary movement as a cultural trend. Provides useful background for any study of Anaya’s work.

Augenbraum, Harold. Review of Alburquerque, by Rudolfo A. Anaya. Library Journal 117 (July, 1992): 119. Calls the novel “an archetypal quest for the father” and says that though “at times melodramatic, the work has an intense spirituality that ultimately makes it mesmerizing.”

Cazemajou, Jean. “Mediators and Mediation in Rudolfo Anaya’s Trilogy: Bless Me, Ultima, Heart of Aztlán, and Tortuga.” In European Perspectives on Hispanic Literature of the United States, edited by Genvieve Fabre. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1988. This important article provides background for an understanding of the place of Alburquerque in the context of Anaya’s earlier novels. Cazemajou sees “myth, not militancy,” as Anaya’s major literary tool and argues that Anaya’s romanticism enables him to avoid the “pitfalls of naturalism that await most minority writers.”

Clark, William. Rudolfo Anaya: The Chicano Worldview. Publishers Weekly 242 (June 5, 1995): 41-42. In this revealing interview, Anaya discusses his personal background, career history, and the books and novels he has written, including Alburquerque. Explores the groundbreaking novel Anaya has provided to a whole generation of Latino writers.

Jussawalla, Feroza. Review of Alburquerque, by Rudolfo Anaya. World Literature Today 68 (Winter, 1994): 125. Jussawalla presents a brief plot synopsis of Anaya’s novel and compares it with Anaya’s previous work, Bless Me, Ultima. Although Jessawalla believes that Alburquerque does not “measure up to Ultima’s greatness,” he nevertheless finds the story compelling and touching.

Publishers Weekly. Review of Alburquerque, by Rudolfo A. Anaya. 239 (May 25, 1992): 36-37. Sees the novel as an “explosive study of political patronage and the search for ethnic roots,” a “touching love story woven into a tale of treachery,” and a penetrating analysis of “the social and economic dislocations squeezing the American Southwest.”