A Sojourn of Desire, Cuando lleguemos: Chicano/a Literature, A Historical Reflection

This article is a historical reflection on Chicano/a literature, arguing that Chicano/a literature, in its essence, continues to express with passion and humility the sensibilities of the common Chicano/a. By exploring this literature’s connection to its pre-Columbian past, the corridos, accommodation and resistance, and current Chicano/a preoccupations, one finds a future full of apertures and possibilities, but also of limitation. Using the image of the migrant worker to symbolize this literature’s yearning for an arrival (a definite fulfillment), he author concludes that Chicano/a literature continues to express only “a sojourn of desire” still reaching for this ambitious aspiration that remains outside the parameters of the national literature.