63 pages • 2 hours read
Américo ParedesGeorge Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2, Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Jonesville-on-the-Grande”
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary
Guálinto goes to church and has to sit near the front with the rest of the children, a way of incentivizing them to behave properly. The priest declares that for each soul that transcends to Heaven after death, a thousand more are damned to Hell. Guálinto feels guilty for the thousand souls that must suffer for him to find Heaven. He tries to imagine the size of the number but cannot.
In flashback, we learn that María fixed Guálinto’s hair using shortening, as they were out of the more appropriate brilliantine solution. A boy behind Guálinto smells it and begins to tease him. Another boy nearby points out that Guálinto lives in the infamous Dos Ventidós district, and the teasing boy pushes away from Guálinto, afraid.
This puts Guálinto in a bad, self-pitying mood. He alternately imagines himself as a deadly rinche marauder and a Mexicotexan revolutionary martyr, but he banishes both fantasies as foolish.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary
A house is physically moved into the vacant lot next to the Gómezes’ house. María is concerned that it is a Protestant preacher, but Feliciano says it is actually a Mexican lawyer who has moved to the area to better help Mexican citizens who have run into trouble with the law. María is elated by this, saying, “He’s a lawyer and wants to help his people? That’s it! That’s what Guálinto is going to be when he grows up” (65).
Guálinto brings a whittled wooden dagger into the banana grove behind the house. He pretends a banana plant is a rinche, stabbing it repeatedly with the blade. Once the initial rush passes, he is terrified by how much damage he has done to the plant with such ease and is afraid of getting in trouble with his mother and uncle.
Fleeing the banana grove, Guálinto encounters a young boy with glasses who makes fun of him for acting strangely. Guálinto is initially standoffish, but the boy introduces himself as Francisco López-Ledré, the nephew of the Gómezes’ new neighbors, and the two of them play together.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary
The Prohibition Era arrives in the United States, and El Danubio Azul is forced to end its run as a cantina. With Judge Norris’s blessing, Feliciano converts the cantina into a grocery store of the same name, which he manages.
The family’s new lawyer-neighbor, Santiago López-Anguera, visits the house to bring news that a Don Santos de la Vega, of Morelos, Mexico’s customs office, wishes to see him. Feliciano is confused by this, and Santiago reveals to him that Don Santos is actually his former acquaintance from los sediciosos, whom he knew as “El Negro.” Fearful of being exposed as a sedicioso himself, Feliciano agrees to meet Don Santos in Morelos at noon.
Part 2, Chapters 6-8 Analysis
The sixth chapter intensifies the stakes of choosing between the bicultural forces pulling Guálinto in different directions by revealing the intensity of his religious teachings. According to the priest, who Guálinto fears and dislikes, he has only one chance in a thousand of going to Heaven. He has trouble believing so many people in the world are so evil as to deserve an eternity in Hell, especially when he considers all the people he loves and respects, like his mother, uncle, sisters, and friends. These long odds to salvation serve to further intensify the moral choices Guálinto faces as a Tejano. His indecision is shown when, within the same fantasy, he imagines himself as both a rinche and a Tejano revolutionary, each identity serving his need to be the subject of a martyr fantasy.
The scene in the banana grove also illustrates an important distinction between Guálinto and the mythological ideal of his namesake, George Washington. In Washington’s cherry tree myth—which the book explores later—he receives a hatchet as a young boy, chops down a cherry tree, and immediately admits his wrongdoing to his father, who praises him for his honesty. Guálinto conversely is not given a hatchet but carves a wooden dagger and stabs a banana plant, imagining it to be a Texas Ranger he has captured. When he is finished, he does not admit to his mother or uncle what he has done, but he instead throws away the dagger and flees, terrified of being punished. The scene shows Guálinto’s character failings and also reveals that, despite his father’s wishes for him, Guálinto is filled with hatred, even if he doesn’t know where to direct his hatred.
Meanwhile, Feliciano’s experiences display his skills at business and politicking in Jonesville. Having ingratiated himself in the Blue party with his “knotted cord” amendment in earlier chapters, he uses his resourcefulness and connections in these chapters to secure his own employment following the enactment of Prohibition, transforming El Danubio Azul into a grocery store. As Guálinto will later note, Feliciano’s success earns him a significant measure of respect within the community of Jonesville. The sudden reappearance of his former compatriot whom he only knew as “El Negro” is especially jarring to Feliciano as he recognizes his past as a sedicioso threatens his new identity.
The different ways Guálinto and Feliciano reconcile their multiple identities—some of them constructed by choice, others via environmental affect—help to distinguish their moral reasoning. In particular, while each of them carefully tends to the versions of themselves they project to the community, for Feliciano this is simply a means to an end: specifically, securing a future for his sister, nieces, and nephew. For Guálinto on the other hand, this projection is an end in and of itself, as he uses the way others see him as a means of measuring his own worth.
