Abstract

In his ethnic narrative The Rain God, Arturo Islas explores the Mexican-American codes of conduct that are designed to punish those who transgress traditional boundaries. In particular, he examines the effects of transgressing bodily norms. He gives his character Miguel Chico experiences with and a perception of disability that mirror his own, and, in doing so, he examines the role of the disabled male in the Chicano culture. The chronically disabled figure -- a character with polio and, later, a colostomy -- is portrayed as not only a figure moving between the world of the healthy and the world of the sick, but is characterized as what Gloria Anzaldua calls a "half dead" figure, moving between the world of living and the world of the dead. With these binaries, Islas shows how the Chicano culture misrepresents the disabled male who cannot fit neatly into categories of healthy and unhealthy, male and female, and acceptable and unacceptable. Thus, he uses disability to explode traditional cultural categories. While he proves that disability is more complicated than his culture will admit, he acknowledges the power of stereotypes and their ability to alter one's course in life. Ultimately, Islas argues that disability has the capacity to rob the Chicano male of his voice and his agency within the Chicano culture as well as the disabled culture. The Rain God is a reclamation project designed to recover that voice. Through various methods, Miguel Chico indeed recovers his voice, but his methods of recovery trap him in a state of psychological wounding and healing, proving the inescapable oppression the disabled male Chicano must endure.

Keywords: disability, disembodied, passing, Chicano, ethnicity, machismo, shaman, healing

Recovery and Loss: Politics of the Disabled Male Chicano

Throughout its history, the Mexican-American community has displayed an often irrepressible will to survive, but, despite its tenacity, it has customarily been silenced by the more powerful, dominant Anglo culture. Over the last few decades, Chicano/a writers have worked to combat this silencing by giving their community a voice through their writing. By saturating their literary works with concerns that are common to contemporary Mexican-Americans, Chicano/a writers have helped the members of their community to become more self-aware and therefore better able to cope with the trials and stigmas that accompany the Chicano identity. In addition, this ethnic writing works to inform other cultures of contemporary Mexican-Americans' trials and concerns.

The discussion of the maintenance of borders is one of the most profound concerns present in Chicano literature, and its ubiquity is not surprising since the Chicano culture was born into a borderland space; it was created from a dichotomous blending of Spanish and Indian cultures and it is even now caught between old Mexican ways and new Anglo ways.^[i] Traditional Mexican-American culture is, itself, deeply embedded with borders. Historically, these borders have functioned as guidelines for "proper" behavior for Mexican-Americans in regard to sexuality and religion, and they have even served to silence or demonize certain Chicanos within their own culture. Thus, certain individuals can be silenced both by the hegemonic Anglo culture as well as the Chicano culture. Those individuals who transgress borders associated with the body are at special risk of being silenced or demonized. Many Chicanos/as now wish to liberate themselves from the constraints their own culture imposes upon their bodies. These attempts at liberation may be costly, however. Gloria Anzaldua explains that the Mexican-American culture penalizes the transgression of those borders that are designed to keep the body in traditionally acceptable spheres of function. She says the Chicano culture "has no tolerance for deviance;" and that those Chicanos who deviate from traditional Mexican-American bodily norms, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, are considered to be "other and therefore lesser [. . .] sub-human, in-human, non-human" (1987, p. 40). Such deviants include "the queer," "the half-breed," and the transgressor that is perhaps the most threatening to traditional Mexican-American bodily norms, "the half-dead" (p. 25).^[ii]

The figure of the "half-dead" can be ostensibly defined as an individual who occupies a space between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Ultimately, it can be interpreted as synonymous with the term "chronically disabled," for the chronically disabled individual occupies a space between the realm of the healthy and the realm of the sick (between that of the functioning body and the non-functioning body), retaining the ability to move in and out of these two spheres of being. The "half dead" figure may thus be seen as an ethnic version of the contemporary disabled individual, yet, perhaps, with additional meaning attached. While it is true that the "half dead" definition of disability, like all definitions of disability, is contingent upon socio-historical factors, it is also true this definition retains some of the qualities that preceded it: not only does it carry the importance our current moment, it is also informed by past moments.

Therefore, it is possible to have simultaneous definitions of disability within a particular socio-historical moment of a particular culture. Consequently, the term "half dead," as it relates to the contemporary disabled Chicano, can be read in different ways because it is informed by two different cultural readings of disability. Historically, the European side of Chicano culture demonized othered bodies, upholding the tradition of reading the physically impaired individual as marked and sinful. Outward impairment was a way of signifying inner depravity. For the Europeans, the sphere of the unhealthy, or the "dead," was a sphere of shame and marginalization. It functioned as a way of qualifying the able-bodied as "normal" and positive. In contrast, the Native American side of the Chicano culture celebrated physical otherness. Certain ancient Mesoamerican cultures revered those with deviant bodies. For them, physical impairment was a mark of uniqueness. Often, those who had experienced great physical suffering due to deviance of the body assumed credibility as a healer, or a shaman. Because of their otherness, these shamans were thought to have visionary powers; they were able to negotiate in both the world of living in the world of the dead. Here, "the dead" signifies a supernatural realm, and a positive meaning is attached to deviance. So having both of these historical definitions at its root, the contemporary disabled Chicano, or the "half dead," can be expected to receive both negative and positive responses from the Chicano culture, demonizing the individual's otherness while at the same time celebrating his putative access to a visionary sphere. Given this consideration, he can be seen as a liminal figure, who has the capacity to identify with the demonized portion of his identity as well as the celebrated portion.

Chicano author Arturo Islas was quite familiar with the "half dead" figure. After a childhood case of polio, he was left with a permanent limp and intestinal problems that eventually led to a colostomy. As a person with a chronic disability, he struggled with both the positive and negative meanings of physical otherness presented by his culture. In his ethnic narrative, The Rain God, Islas explores his feelings about being a disabled Chicano through the portrayal of his disabled Chicano character Miguel Chico Angel, nicknamed Mickie, whose experiences with and perception of disability mirror Islas' own. Mickie, like Islas, lives in a borderlands space; he is a liminal figure trying to find his place as he moves between the world of the healthy and the sick, the living and the dead. Miguel Chico is suggested to be the narrator of The Rain God (a text which is a recording of the Angel family's history) and, as such, he occupies two roles at once -- that of narrator and that of character. His simultaneous occupation of different cultures is also apparent. As he navigates between these spheres, it becomes obvious that his "half dead" status allows him to also navigate between the realms of the masculine and feminine, the mind and body, and the acceptable and unacceptable in his culture. Islas uses this status as a way of complicating traditional binaries present in the Chicano culture. In doing so, he reveals the culture's attempt to oversimplify the sexual and religious ideals associated with the body and he acknowledges its misrepresentation of the disabled male's performance in the arenas he examines.^[iii]

Islas' introduction of the disabled narrator and character not only gives the disabled male Chicano representation in the literary community, but it also helps to explore disability's effects on traditional Mexican-American gender codes. In examining those effects, Islas displays the complexity that is characteristic of all of his writing. On one hand, Miguel Chico's relationships with his family and community confirms cultural stereotypes. From a reading of these relationships, we may conclude that there is a polarity in power between the able-bodied male Chicano and the disabled male Chicano, with the able-bodied male being more powerful and therefore superior. We may also conclude that there is a greater stigma attached to being a disabled male in the Chicano culture than there is in the Anglo culture. Though he confirms the stereotypes at times in the text, he also defies them by showing that Miguel Chico cannot easily fit into the categories of the body that his culture prescribes. In addition, the introduction of disability reveals problems with the binaries that the Catholic religion -- the official religion of Chicano culture -- attaches to the body. Mickie's chronically disabled body fits into none of the simple categories Catholicism recognizes; his form is neither sacred nor profane, neither exalted nor demonized. With this discussion, Islas exposes the dangerous and unhealthy image of the disabled body that Catholicism promotes, illuminating issues that are still being addressed in ethnic literature today.

I believe that, in writing The Rain God, Islas was calling for revisions of negative stereotypes of the body and problematic gender codes. A consideration of Islas' work can inform ethnic literature of these issues, for although ethnic literature has traditionally dealt with discussions of the body, discussions of the disabled body (as it is defined by the social model of disability) in this genre appears to be scant. In addition, it can contribute to the field of Disability Studies which has, until recently, largely neglected a consideration of the intersection between race and disability. Ultimately, while I believe that The Rain God was Islas' attempt to save the disabled male Chicano from the fate of falling into the stereotypical role of the weak, inferior, feminine, silenced outcast, I think it was also a project designed to explain why stereotypes and the myths surrounding them continue to circulate. Through acknowledging that Chicanos are penalized for transgressions of traditional boundaries associated with the body, readers are able to understand Chicanos' fear of resisting tradition. Though Miguel Chico struggles to liberate himself by voicing his feelings about his body, Islas makes his reservations about doing so quite obvious; Mickie's reluctance reveals the confusion associated with the identity of the disabled male Chicano. I believe that Islas submits that traditional Chicano cultural categories, though socially constructed, have the ability to produce stereotypical results in disabled males when they perceive themselves from those traditional points of view. These perceptions, Islas suggests, can encourage disabled male Chicanos to try to "pass" for able-bodied Anglos, and Islas shows how disabled males can lose their voices in the Chicano culture due to the passing. In other words, their acceptance of the negative responses to their disabled bodies can cause them to forego agency in the disabled culture.

But all of these conclusions are implicit and must be extracted. At the foundation of the narrative is the fact that the narrator is struggling to confront these issues and that he is afraid to vocalize them. Through an analysis of Mickie, as well as a consideration of the narrator, I will argue that Islas suggests Mickie's perception of his body, as it is informed by responses to it from the Chicano culture, affects his negotiations within the cultures to which he belongs. I will also argue that Islas suggests that disability has the capacity to rob Chicano males of their voices in the Chicano culture, and that The Rain God is a project of reclamation designed to help Mickie recover his voice and rewrite the image of male Chicano. Finally, I will assert this process of reclamation places him within a continual state of psychological wounding and healing, loss and recovery.

Formation of the Psyche

Because Mickie's expression of voice is closely related to the amount of power he holds in his culture, it is prudent to closely analyze his negotiations of power within that culture. As I stated earlier, the most powerful members of Mexican-American culture are typically those members who conform to bodily norms, and one of the most obvious bodily norms is the prescribed gender roles. Barbara Rodriguez, who has conducted extensive research on disabled Chicanos, reports that gender roles are clearly defined in traditional Mexican-American culture. Males are expected to display machismo, or virility, and are expected to ignore physical suffering (1998, p. 15).

Alfredo Mirande (1985) discusses this machismo in detail, explaining that Chicano males are expected to prove their masculinity in several ways. For instance, they must command respect from others for themselves and their families and must have numerous girlfriends or mistresses. They must command complete allegiance, respect, and submissiveness from their wives and children, and they must be authoritarian and create dependence. Pathological views associate machismo with irresponsibility, inferiority, ineptitude, aggression, violence and criminality, including rape. According to Mirande, today's cult of machismo, or the overbearing male, is seen as "compensation for powerlessness and weakness which become manifest as the impotent, powerless, colonized man turns his frustration and aggression inward toward his wife and family." Ultimately, he says, "machismo is but a futile attempt to prove one's masculinity" (as quoted in Neimann, 2004, p. 63). This socially constructed tradition has its historical roots in the Mexican conquest. Octavio Paz describes the macho as having been born of the rape of Mexico by the Spanish conquerors, which accounts for his subsequent feelings of inferiority. Mexican men are self-described as hijos de la chingada (sons of the raped one). The Chingada is the mythical mother of Mexico who was forcibly penetrated by the conquering Spaniard, thus producing a nueva raza (new race) of people known as Mexicans (as quoted in Neimann, 2004, p. 63).

Yolanda Flores Niemann notes that males who do not fit traditional definitions of machismo are at risk of not being perceived as masculine. Chicano males, unlike Chicanas, gradually lose their power and authority as they age because their physical attributes weaken. Elderly and "lame" males are thus considered less than "real men" (2004, p. 67). Consequently, Chicano males may have difficulty accepting disability. They may also try to deny or minimize disability as long as they can function within their role (Rodriguez, 1998, p. 15). In The Rain God, Miguel Chico's father is the archetype for the traditional Mexican-American male. He is obstinate and emotionally distant, and he exhibits great physical prowess. Because he displays these macho qualities, he enjoys power within his culture, and he expects his son to exhibit these qualities so as to retain the same power. Like a typical macho Chicano male, Miguel Grande consistently denies disability, and the narrator explicitly acknowledges this fact by informing readers that Grande "was never sick and he ignored the illnesses of others" (p. 69). Grande not only ignored Mickie's first complaints of symptoms, but actually refused to let him seek medical attention, despite the fact that many children were dying of polio at the time. With authority, the obstinate father warned Mickie's mother Juanita that she should stay in her traditional role of the submissive wife: "I'm the head of this family, and you're not calling anybody" (pp. 94-95). Grande even accused his son of feigning illness to get attention and called him a complaining "brat" (p. 94).

Since Miguel Grande attached such stigma to illness, it is not surprising that Mickie felt an intense pressure to conform to the traditional male gender role or that he developed a strong desire to please his father -- a desire that would follow him into his adolescence and adulthood. In order to please his father and remain in a socially acceptable gender sphere, he tried to deny his illness by hiding his physical symptoms during his adolescence. In a symbolic scene, Miguel Grande smokes cigarettes near his adolescent son even though he is aware that Mickie has a weak stomach. When Mickie becomes nauseated by the smell of the smoke, he refuses to complain to his father. The narrator says that "Miguel Chico fought his nausea" and immediately afterwards, "he went to the toilet and vomited" (p. 68). Mickie wishes to retain as much virility as he can, even under the circumstances of his physical anguish. In the same scene, Mickie hides some of his other physical ailments from his father by neglecting to mention that he has blood in his stool (pp. 68-69). He is obviously ashamed of his physical otherness. Even though he is young, it is clear that Mickie realizes he would lose standing in his culture if he were to admit that he is not the typical macho male.

Mickie is unable to hide some of his physical differences, however, and the narrator makes a point of describing how Mickie's power negotiations are affected. We are told that when Miguel Chico developed his limp, "it pained [Miguel Grande] to see his son walk, and eventually he invented ways to make a man of the adolescent boy" (p. 96). In an attempt to try to minimize his son's disability, Grande instigated fist fights for Mickie, enrolled him in swimming classes, and showed his love for his son through bone crushing hugs that lacked affection (p. 96). Frederick Luis Aldama, Islas' critical biographer, (2005) reveals that Arturo's relationship with his father was much the same as Mickie's relationship with Grande. He says that Islas "had learned the father's lesson well: never reveal your weakness," and like Mickie, Arturo could not hide illness forever (p. 23). His father, too, considered his son to be lacking in strength and virility. In fact, the similarities between Islas and Mickie are striking, and after noting the similarities, it becomes clear that Islas, Mickie, and the narrator of The Rain God are not only inextricably bound, but are also united in their understanding of the disabled experience in the Chicano culture. In essence, they all perceive disabled male Chicanos as victims.

To place The Rain God in a Disability Studies perspective, readers should ask themselves how much authority and respect Mickie actually loses due to his disability and if that information adequately reflects the amount of authority and respect lost by all disabled male Chicanos. One might easily conclude that the powerful macho father/powerless disabled son relationship is typical in the Chicano culture, but this type of relationship can characterize the Anglo culture as well. So how is disability unique in the Chicano culture? Islas suggests that the traditional Mexican-American culture instills a superadded pressure beyond that which disabled Anglo males encounter. Enrique G. Lopez, Jr. (1998) notes that Islas intentionally marginalized his characters' "search for a Chicano identity" so that he could explore other issues like sexuality (p. iii). While it is true that this marginalization exists in the novel, readers cannot deny that there is an intentional saturation of Mexican-American culture throughout the book. The novel is meant to be read as an ethnic novel. Though discussion of traditional Mexican-American characteristics may be implicit, those characteristics are bound to Mickie's identity and our reading of his identity. Similarly, his identity as a Chicano is bound to his identity as a physical deviant. Based on the assumption that readers will make these connections, Islas implies that Chicano males attach greater shame to disability than do Anglo males. He accomplishes this by linking Mickie's othered body with his father's traditional Mexican-American gender role. When the narrator says that Miguel Chico "had always felt that his father disliked him for being too delicate, too effeminate," readers associate the traditional Mexican-American male's machismo with his intolerance of disability (p. 94). Islas' connection of illness with a disruption in traditional Mexican-American culture convinces readers that the Chicano culture is less accepting of disability than is the Anglo culture. In describing Mickie's poor relationship with his father, the narrator says, "Mickie's illness caused a breach between him and his father that neither of them ever knew how to mend" (p. 95). With this passage, Islas leaves readers with various impressions: He suggests that the unforgiving Mexican-American culture sees a polarity in power between the disabled male Chicano and the able-bodied male Chicano and that the Mexican-American culture sees the disabled Chicano as inferior to the able-bodied male Chicano.

These impressions may reflect the reality of the intersection between the disabled culture and the Chicano culture -- after all, the "half-dead" are considered to be deviant in traditional Mexican-American culture -- but it seems that the biased narrator (who is suggested to be Miguel Chico, himself) may cloud readers' abilities to see part of the reason that disabled male Chicanos do not fit the traditional Mexican-American definition of the all-powerful male. Given the information we are presented by the narrator, it would seem that much of Mickie's deviation is not derived directly from his physical impairment but rather from his culture's response to it and his own perception of it, a common occurrence in disabled culture.

As Rosemarie Garland Thomson asserts, disability is "not so much a property of bodies as a product of cultural rules about what bodies should be or do" (1997, p. 6). Under the social model, disability ceases to be something that a person has, and becomes instead something that is done to the person. To be disabled is to have experiences of being excluded and of being confronted on a daily basis by physical, environmental, legal, cultural, and attitudinal barriers which limit opportunities for human experience (Swain, French, and Cameron, 2003, p. 24). These definitions help to illuminate the real sources of Miguel Chico's limitations. His intestinal problems do not appear to cause severe limitations on his daily functions until he becomes an adult, and though the limp that he develops during his adolescence is certainly noticeable, the narrator suggests that it is actually more of an impediment for Miguel Grande than it is for Mickie. Aldama reports that Islas managed to maneuver well despite his limp. In fact, as a teenager, Islas even became a great dancer, dazzling everyone with his "agile and daring dance movements" (2005, p. 106). Since Islas' and Mickie's lives so closely parallel,^[iv] we can conclude that Mickie could have continued with swimming classes and engaged in fights if he had chosen, but he is "protected" by his mother and chooses to avoid those situations: "All of [Miguel Grande's] attempts failed because Juanita found out about them and protected her son even more vigilantly" (p. 96). Miguel Chico's failure to conform to the traditional definition of "male" seems to derive, in part, from his psychological encumbrances, which surface as a result of his physical otherness. When he allows his perception of his body to be corrupted by his father's perception of it, he internalizes the fear and shame that his father attaches to disability and he intentionally begins to suppress the traditional "male" inside himself. Islas admitted that he suppressed his own masculinity because he grew to loathe his father's hyper-masculine reactions to his illness. According to Aldama, "throughout Islas' life, the father symbolized that strong physicality and cold emotional state that he could never embody. So he became his father's opposite" (2005, p. 16). Islas' and Mickie's reactions are understandable. If their fathers represent the typical Mexican-American male, then they likely felt that all Mexican-American males considered them to be inferior and powerless, and, consequently, they felt they could never possess the level of masculinity that able-bodied males possess.^[v] By underscoring the distinction between impairment and disability, as Thomson defines it, Islas brings to the forefront the issue of how disability is created by sociocultural contexts rather than physical affliction, itself. Many of Miguel Chico's negative reactions to his own othered body are mainly results of others' reactions to his body.

This chain reaction that led to the formation of his psyche also extends into these negotiations inside the female sphere of his culture. Though Miguel Chico already embodied typically feminine traits as a child and may have possessed a natural tendency to navigate inside the female sphere, his perception of his "delicate" body seems to have reinforced this natural tendency. Aldama tells us that Islas' rejection of his father's macho codes of conduct led him to identify with his mother (2005, p. 16). Like Islas, Mickie grows to identify with the women of his family. He adopts his sentimental, emotionally expressive mother's "feminine" methods of communicating and showing affection. Ironically, he develops such a need to express himself that he becomes a writer. When the narrator introduces readers to Mickie, we find him writing his family history, gazing at the photograph of his grandmother, Mama Chona, and reflecting on the influence that the women of his family have had on his life and his perception of himself. We learn that "in some vastly significant way, he felt he was still a child of these women, an extension of them" (p. 25). Though he internalizes his father's repulsion of disability, he also internalizes females' attitudes about the body, and he shapes his view of his culture accordingly. Barbara Rodriguez tells us that whereas traditional Mexican-American males try to deny or minimize disability due to embarrassment and shame, traditional Mexican-American females consider it important to endure physical hardship for the sake of their families. In essence, they sacrifice their bodies to their families in order to please their culture (1998, p. 15). Though Juanita is not disabled, she is a prime example of the submissive Mexican-American female who strives to please her husband and community. She quietly tolerates her husband's infidelity, and Mickie is profoundly affected by her willingness to endure this hardship; he becomes preoccupied with the same need to subscribe to traditional Mexican-American notions of bodily norms in order to please his community. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator tells us that "Miguel Chico knew that Mama Chona's family held contradictory feelings for him. Because he was still not married and seldom visited the desert, they suspected that he, too, belonged on the list of sinners" (p. 4). In mentioning this concern, the narrator reveals that Mickie feels some guilt over his failure to please his family and culture by sacrificing his body to them (by failing to live a traditional life of marriage and procreation). This is particularly true if Miguel Chico, himself, is the narrator. Mickie's preoccupation with his family's "contradictory feelings" informs readers that he has internalized the typical Mexican-American female's martyr complex. In this way, he has become an addendum to these women, "an extension of them." Since he mimics their attitudes about the body and learns to feel their guilt, he is their "child." Ironically, however, he also feels like a "child" when he compares himself with these women; he cannot completely embody their spirit of self-sacrifice. After all, he has also internalized, to some degree, the self-absorbed attitudes characteristic of traditional Mexican-American males. Consequently, he negotiates between the martyr sphere and the macho sphere, trying to please both his community and himself, and he is left feeling as if he does not have full power in either realm.

While Miguel Grande expects his son to divorce his body from his disability, Mama Chona wants Mickie to divorce himself from his body entirely. Miguel Chico's grandmother undoubtedly had more influence on Mickie's perception of his body than did any other woman in his family, so it is not surprising that he internalizes her stern reinforcement of hierarchies, particularly those encouraged by her strict Catholic doctrine. According to Anzaldua, "The Catholic and Protestant religions encourage a split between the mind and body [. . .] They encourage us to kill off parts of ourselves. We are taught that the body is an ignorant animal; intelligence dwells only in the head" (1987, p. 59). Mama Chona is the Angel who most perfectly embodies this mind/body split. The narrator tells us that she used her body only as tool for bearing children, that she cut herself off from pleasure, and that she denied the existence of all parts of her body below the neck, with the exception of her hands. She thought of the body as being impure and encouraged her grandchildren to ignore their bodies and to cultivate their minds, which were, in her opinion, "infinitely more precious and closer to God" (p. 164). Mickie internalized this traditional view of the body and realized that those Chicanos who could divorce themselves from their bodies were considered to be more saintly and, consequently, more powerful in the eyes of Mama Chona. He felt that, if he could achieve this disembodied state, he would be more martyr-like and, consequently, more powerful in the sphere of women.

It is possible that he not only would have held more power in the female sphere, but that he would have been more powerful in his entire culture. Since Catholicism is the official religious doctrine of the traditional Mexican-American culture, it stands to reason that the most powerful members of the Mexican-American culture are those members who conform to the teachings of Catholicism -- namely, those members who are able to disconnect from their bodies and appear more saintly. Therefore, in an effort to please his grandmother and retain power in his culture, "Miguel Chico ignored his body and became a good student" (p. 96). He could not entirely escape his corporeality, however. Though his disability may not have caused major physical encumbrances during his adolescence, it still served as a reminder of the existence of his body while he was forming his impressions of the world. In the acclaimed anthology The Body and Physical Difference, Disability Studies critic James Porter explains that,

a disabled body seems somehow too much a body, too real, too corporeal; it is a body that, so to speak, stands in its own way. From another angle, which is no less reductive, a disabled body appears to lack something essential, something that would make it identifiable and something to identify with; it seems too little a body: a body that is [. . .] not quite a body in the full sense of the word, not real enough (Porter,1997, p. xiii).

Mickie consumed both of these viewpoints. When his body was "not real enough," he was a saint, both familially and metaphorically an "angel;" he felt pure, uncontaminated by his body. But when his body felt "too real," he felt like a sinner, a filthy monster. In fact, the words "angel" and "monster" appear throughout the novel as evidence of Mickie's preoccupation with purity and impurity.

This dichotomy is not the only contradiction that Catholicism attaches to the body, however. The reward/punishment dichotomy, which the Catholic doctrine presents, causes Mickie to experience great confusion about his disability. According to Rodriguez, the Catholic religion may view disability as a trial that an individual must endure in order to demonstrate that he or she is worthy of spiritual reward, but it may also be considered divine punishment dispensed due to the disabled individual's wrongdoing (1998, p. 16). Hence, disabled individuals can view themselves as inherently good or inherently bad. As a disabled Catholic, the contradictory perceptions Mickie holds in regard to his body affect his personal views about his moral nature, his relationship with God, and his place in the afterlife, but Mama Chona would not have understood her grandson's confusion. The narrator tells us that "in her world, there were no accidents. Every event was divine retribution or blessing" (p. 164). Islas himself felt as if God was coming to judge whether he was saint or sinner when he was stricken with polio (Aldama, 2005, p. 104), and this is one of Mickie's lifelong preoccupations as well, for throughout the novel, he explores his thoughts about his body with the objective of determining whether he is saint or sinner, angel or monster. In revealing the unhealthy effects Catholic principles can have on individuals with disabled bodies, Islas calls for a revision of constraining traditional doctrine. He promotes a religion where people are not punished for possessing bodies, disabled or otherwise.

Though Mickie knows that saints and angels are admired and respected in his culture, and though he is ashamed of his "too real" body, he is not completely willing to resign his connection with his body simply to please his community. He considers himself a "New Mestizo" -- a modern Mexican-American with modern views -- and though he internalizes traditional perceptions of the body, he also consciously rejects them. A part of him wishes to celebrate his body rather than divorce himself from it. The narrator hints at Mickie's desire to create a stronger connection with his body in a metaphorical description of the drug-induced state Mickie experiences before his colostomy surgery: "He longed to escape from the drugged and disembodied state of twilight in which he had lived for weeks" (p. 6). The "disembodied state of twilight" suggests not only a literal drug-induced feeling of physical disembodiment, but also the figurative disembodied state that Catholicism promotes; it, too, was an illusory "state of twilight" from which Mickie longed to escape.

Survival Skills

Mickie's disability may have left him with opposing views about life and contradictory perceptions of his own body, but his disability also helped him develop complex negotiating skills that facilitated his survival in the Chicano culture. Anzaldua (1987) explains that deviants within the Chicano culture sometimes subconsciously develop defense mechanisms to help them cope with their physical otherness. She calls one of these mechanisms "la facultad" and defines it as a "survival tactic" that people who are caught between two worlds unknowingly cultivate:

Those who are pushed out of the tribe for being different are likely to become more sensitized [. . .]. Those who do not feel psychologically or physically safe in the world are more apt to develop this sense. Those who are pounced on the most have it the strongest — the females, the foreign. When we're up against the wall, when we have all sorts of oppressions coming at us, we are forced to develop this faculty so that we'll know when the next person is going to slap us or lock us away (Anzaldua, 1987, pp. 60-61).

The Rain God's narrator depicts Mickie as having such a faculty when he refers to Mickie's "intuitive knowledge" and "psychic" powers (p. 94, 92). These "psychic" powers help Miguel Chico survive one of his greatest hardships associated with his deviance -- his father. The first time he saw his father cry, he reached out to comfort him; his father admonished him for his sensitivity, insulted his manhood, and sent him away (pp. 92-93). If Mickie had been able-bodied, his father's "rebuff" surely would have caused him emotional pain, but it might not have made a lasting impression. Because he had been so severely ridiculed for his lack of virility for so long, however, he would remember, without a doubt, "the lesson" of avoiding intimacy with his father (p. 93). Years later he was able to avoid further pain by instinctively circumventing it (p. 94).

Aldama helps us to better understand Mickie's "faculty" and its resulting empowerment in describing Islas' faculty: "Suffering physically and coming close to death opened Islas' eyes to the power of resisting and challenging the patriarchal master [. . .]. He was less willing to submit to his father's threats of punishment. And, he was less willing to please the father to gain his attention and favor" (2005, p. 106). Surviving his physical otherness, therefore, helped him develop a "survival of the fittest" mentality that undermined the traditional hierarchy of power. Ironically, from this perspective, Mickie is more "fit" and more powerful than his able-bodied father. This mentality, combined with the feelings of superiority he acquired from his education, helped him combat the traumatic feelings of inferiority his father induced in him.

In explaining how Islas used his education as a survival tool, Aldama notes that Islas possessed "an insatiable appetite for consuming healthy bodies of knowledge as a way to escape an overwhelming sense of inhabiting an unhealthy body" (p. 104). He adds that, "through his reading and studying, young Islas learned to live more freely within the otherwise restrictive confines of a patriarchally circumscribed household and within a physically limited body" (p. 106). The narrator implies that Mickie attempts to undergo the same process of empowerment by choosing to ignore his body and becoming a good student (p. 96). Furthermore, he suggests that Mickie's disability contributed to his professorship. Although Miguel Chico enjoyed school even before the advent of his childhood polio, the narrator suggests that Mickie's appetite for education grew after his physical ailments began. Immediately after we read about Juanita's vigilant protectiveness of her son, we are informed of Miguel Chico's willingness to ignore his body and become a good student (p. 96). We can conclude that Mickie spent many hours of his childhood and adolescence studying in order to escape his father's wrath and to escape his own corporeality. Consequently, he became the first in his generation to leave home after being admitted to a private and prestigious university before it was fashionable to accept students from his background (p. 4). The narrator tells us that, as a result of his education, Mickie felt superior to those who reared him and loved him (p. 91).

Readers of the novel can see this superiority at work in the scene in which Miguel Grande appeals to his son for advice about his revealing his infidelity. As Miguel Chico and his father discuss Grande's infidelity, Grande becomes paranoid, afraid that the women are overhearing their conversation. Mickie is quite secure, however, and with authority, he "angrily" responds to his father: "Don't worry. They can't hear anything" (pp. 93-94). The disabled child is now in control -- control enabled by a heightened faculty and an empowering education. In an effort to remain in control, Mickie refuses to offer his father any advice: "The son could see no way of helping [the father] now" (p. 94). When Mickie spoke to his father afterwards, he used an "impersonal" and "vindictive" tone (p. 93). The narrator tells us that he felt "the exhilaration of cruelty, of being able to injure as one has felt injured" (p. 94). This exertion of superiority may not have been the ideal form of coping, but was indeed a "survival tactic."

Post-Polio Adulthood: Living with the Colostomy

Though Mickie combats his inferiority complex with feelings of superiority at times, he is still not totally accepting of his body. The same faculty that leads Mickie to defend himself through an assumed superiority also leads him to instinctively minimize certain differences in his body, namely his sexual orientation and the colostomy he acquired as an adult. Anzaldua explains that deviants minimize their differences out of fear of abandonment:

We're afraid of being abandoned by the mother, the culture, la Raza, for being unacceptable, faulty, damaged. Most of us unconsciously believe that if we reveal this unacceptable aspect of the self our mother/culture/race will totally reject us. To avoid rejection, some of us conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows (1987, p. 42).

To avoid being abandoned, Mickie pushes his homosexuality "into the shadows" because he wishes to survive in a culture that has no tolerance for homosexuality. He is surely aware of the "breach" between Miguel Grande and Felix (p. 87). Mickie does not want to widen the existing breach between him and his father by giving his father yet another reason to be ashamed of him, so he keeps his desire for men a secret. Even the narrator avoids explicitly stating Mickie's sexual orientation. The narrator only states that when people ask Mickie why he is not married, he self-consciously says that he had an operation and he "let[s] them guess the rest"^[vi] (p. 5). Essentially, Mickie is content to "pass" for a heterosexual because he wishes to avoid the pain of abandonment. In doing so, he silences his own voice as a homosexual Chicano.

By the time he reaches adulthood, Mickie has also been hiding his intestinal problems for quite a while. In other words, he has been "passing" for able-bodied during his adulthood. Before his colostomy operation, he is literally and metaphorically anesthetized: he has "lost control over his body" and he "float[s] in perpetual dusk" (p. 6). Due to his despair over his forthcoming surgery, he becomes ambivalent about his own survival. In a halfhearted manner, he tells his nurses to let him die (p. 7), but his "faculty" soon intercedes. Anzaldua claims that the faculty has a dual nature. It is not only a latent survival tool, but it can be a conscious reminder -- or a "wake-up call" -- that can shock a person out of a state of ambivalence. Apparently, there are many violations that can trigger this "break" in the anesthetized consciousness (Anzaldua, 1987, p. 61). Mickie's violation is his postoperative pain.

When Mickie wakes in the recovery room after his operation, he both literally and metaphorically wakes. The narrator says, "Lying on a gurney in the recovery room, Miguel Chico came to life for the second time" (p. 7). Mickie is, in effect, preparing to give himself another chance at life, another chance to present his true self, complete with disability and homosexuality. He is also ready to recognize his family's influence over his perception of his own body and his loss of voice in the Chicano culture. The narrator suggests that Mickie is awakened to his own pain by a vision of a white woman "on all fours" who happens to be screaming in pain (p. 8). He continues by informing us that "only later did it occur to [Mickie] that he might have imagined her" (p. 8). By depicting this realization as a vision, the narrator suggests that Mickie's break in consciousness, or his "wake-up call," is a product of his supernatural faculty. The fact that the white woman is in pain is important. At that moment, the only thing keeping him "awake" to the realities of life is her pain. Shortly afterwards, he would realize his own pain, and only that "vague" pain would connect him to his flesh. The narrator states that, without this pain, he would have been pure, bodiless intellect (p. 8).

It is fitting that pain is the bodily element that metaphorically wakes Mickie, for Anzaldua says that pain makes deviants acutely aware of their faculties (1987). The noted critic Elaine Scarry, author of The Body in Pain, would likely affirm this assertion. She explains that the body in pain has "certainty," suggesting that there is no room for ambiguity after one has experienced physical anguish (1985, p. 4). After experiencing physical pain, Mickie realizes his tolerance to his own ambivalence in regard to his place in his culture. When the nurse who attends him mispronounces his Mexican-American name, calling him "Mee-gwell," he grows impatient. He wants to correct her, but when he tries to speak, he realizes that he has lost his voice due to the intubation procedure his doctors had performed earlier (p. 8). Metaphorically, he wants to make her understand that he is a part of the Chicano culture, and he wants to make her aware of the pain and frustration that he experiences in that culture due to his othered body and deviant sexual orientation. Mickie also begins to show an intolerance to his grandmother's views on the "impurity" of the body. In a state of "twilight," he talks to Mama Chona, saying "I'm an angel," but he is forced to acknowledge his foolishness when the nurse once again calls to him with the words, "Wake up, Mee-gwell" (p. 8).

As he looks at the tubes connected to his body and watches himself "piss, shit, and throw up blood," he realizes that he is going to have to live with his imperfect body for the rest of his life (p. 7). It is his faculty that keeps saying to him, "You cannot escape from your body, you cannot escape from your body" (p. 7). In this way, it is warning him against the dangers of continued tolerance to ambivalence. Afterwards, he begins to understand that it was his faculty that woke him to his family's negative influences on his perception of his own body as well as his perception of life in general: "Only later, when he survived [. . .] did he see how carefully he had been schooled by Mama Chona to suffer and, if necessary, to die" (p. 7). Later in the novel, we can conclude Mickie decides that he, rather than his family, has ownership of his body. His realization is evident in his refusal to take his grandmother's hand on her deathbed. He refuses to be "brought back into the fold" (p. 5), but for now, he is just beginning to learn the importance of embracing his body. At this point, "he [is] a child again," but I argue that he is a child who is awake (p. 8). His physical pain is a starting point on his journey. It allows him to combine learning with experience. It takes his intuition and turns it into something with "certainty."

After Mickie survives his colostomy operation and returns to his everyday routine, his daily obligations are never again "normal." In actuality, he is neither sick nor well. He is, in effect, in remission. In his book The Wounded Storyteller, Disability Studies critic Arthur W. Frank defines "the remission society" as a group of people who are effectively well but can never be cured (1995, p. 8).Though these people may be all around us, their disabilities are invisible until they are revealed to us. According to Frank, members of the remission society include people with pacemakers and prosthetic devices (p. 8), and Mickie's colostomy bag certainly qualifies him for membership in this society. Until Miguel Chico reveals his colostomy bag to the public, it is not an issue for them; he is in remission, but the moment that it is revealed, he is considered to be "sick."

Islas brilliantly links the changing of the colostomy bag with the cleansing ritual of the native peoples of central and northern Mexico. The narrator tells us that, though Mickie loathes his colostomy bag, he knows that his life depends on it, and the changing the bag becomes a "ritual" (p. 25). The extraction process becomes a physical and psychological endeavor to extract "evils" from his body and mind. Indigenous Mexicans held the belief that foreign objects implanted in the body can cause illness. Illness, depression, and weakness were considered signs of a loss of animating force, or loss of soul, and were thought to be caused by hidden evil forces. The implantation of a foreign object in the body was therefore not only a possible sign of contamination by evil forces, but it could directly lead to a loss of soul. Traditional shamans used visions, trances, and rituals to replenish animating forces. One of the most common magical healing rituals in the Mesoamerican culture is the cleaning ritual called the "sucking" ritual. In this process, shamans removed solid objects from the body by extracting them to the surface with a tube or sucking on it with their lips. Another common cleaning ritual is the "limpia," a process of extracting invisible evils that invade the body and cause illness. Many shamans used objects to aid in this magical extraction. For example, they sometimes waved a feather, an egg, or piece of cotton around the infected individual while they recited chants (Dow, 2001, pp. 71-88).

With the "ritual" of the changing of the colostomy bag, Islas ascribes a shamanic role to Mickie, giving him powers of healing. Each time he extracts the physical object of waste from his body, he also attempts to remove the "evils" from his mind. After the ritual has ended, he can forget about his illness, at least momentarily. He makes it his custom to retire to bed and go to sleep after his nightly bag-changing. The psychological evils that haunt him disappear for a short while. Yet he still has trouble embracing his differently abled body and consciously hides his colostomy bag from the public in order to "pass" for able-bodied. Though his ritual may force him to confront his illness and may provide him with temporary physical relief, and, afterwards, temporary psychological relief, it is kept a private ritual and never made a public ritual as are many traditional shamanic healing processes wherein the community supports shamans as they conduct their rituals. In refusing to physically reveal his colostomy bag to his community, he foregoes the opportunity to represent himself as a person with a chronic illness inside a culture that historically embraced the shaman and his "cleaning ritual."

Writing the Body

Elaine Scarry says that, though the body in pain has "certainty," it has difficulty expressing its pain. She says that physical pain cannot express itself with ordinary language (the language that the body uses when it is not in pain). Physical pain must therefore find a new medium of expression, a new language, and when it finds this new language, "it has to tell its story" (1985, p. 3). Arthur Frank disagrees, claiming that the body has no voice of its own. He says that people must speak for their bodies: "They need to become storytellers in order to recover the voices that illness and its treatment often take away" (1995, p. xii). It seems to me that both critics neglect an important point here. Miguel Chico's voice in his culture may have been silenced, but his body's voice does have the ability to speak, even when it is in pain. It remains articulate as long as his colostomy is exposed or he is walking so that his limp is visible. When we see a person walking with a limp, the owner of that body does not need to explain to us that some kind of physical trauma has occurred to cause the limp. That body speaks for itself. Similarly, when Mickie's colostomy is exposed, his body is speaking for itself. In his body of uncollected works, Arturo Islas includes a poem called "Scat Bag" in which the narrator, presumably Islas, speaks to his colostomy wound, the opening in his side which pours out material waste. He describes his colostomy's ability to speak by itself, and, in fact, suggests that it engages in incessant metaphorical chatter which he cannot control: "Fragrant, red mouth at my side/ [. . .]/ What shall I do with this constant ooze?" (Scat Bag, 2003, p. 141). His colostomy has its own "mouth" which "oozes" private information about his body that he would rather not share with the public. Mickie does not completely neglect the public, however. Though he is not comfortable with physically revealing his colostomy, he seeks to discover another way to reveal his disabled status to his community. Like Islas, Mickie felt he had to find a way to amplify his metaphorical "voice" -- the voice that represents him in his entirety -- if it would ever be heard over the voice of his body. Not surprisingly, Islas ascribes to Mickie his own method of voice amplification and coping: they both decided to "write" the body. When Islas and Mickie wrote about their bodies, they were no longer forced to "pass" for healthy, able-bodied heterosexuals. They were allowed to reveal their deviance and explore their own fears and insecurities about their bodies. When they admitted their physical otherness in their writing, their remission statuses disappeared, but it was up to them whether or not they were viewed as "sick" since they were in charge of the words recorded on paper. Their metaphorical voices were amplified in the Chicano culture when they published The Rain God, and intolerant members of their culture were able to learn more about the reality of physical otherness.

Not only was writing a way for Mickie to amplify his voice, but it was his way of healing. It was his way of "giv[ing] meaning to the accidents of life" (p. 28). It was, in essence, his cure. Aldama describes how Islas was also healed by writing:

Increasingly, Islas turned to creative writing as a way to explore his insecurities [. . .] which stemmed from indirect and direct social pressures to be physically perfect [. . .] As a writer, he struggled to come to terms with a warped self-image that pictured him as ugly, diseased, and deformed. The writing helped him fight his demons [. . .] The writing would help him explore and work out emotional tensions and contradictions within (2005, p. 110).

This passage can describe Mickie's experiences with writing as well, for he, too, uses writing as a way to fight the "monsters" of insecurity. In one of the most memorable scenes of the novel, he dreams during his sleep that he and his "monster" fall into an abyss together. When he wakes from his sleep, he does not go back to bed as he usually does after changing his bag, but he instead sits at his desk and records the details of the dream. The narrator informs us that it is Mickie's way of making peace with "the dead" (p. 160). In this description, "the dead" includes those members of his family who have literally died, but it also encompasses all those feelings of insecurity about his body which Miguel Chico wishes to lay to rest. Underlying the scene is an undeniable struggle for optimism and "sinverguenza."^[vii] His writing is thus a performance of his faculty. It functions as a survival tool that helps this physical deviant remain powerful in a culture that so discourages physical otherness.

While writing helps Mickie to cope with his differences, it also magnifies them and reveals them to him in all of their complexity. Aldama tells us that, through writing, Islas explored the true feelings that lay underneath an illusory mask of happiness and satisfaction (2005, p. 110). This exploration could have actually contributed to his psychological trauma. Aldama tells us that "at one point, [Islas] began to think he might be manic depressive because of [. . .] his sense of himself as a sensitive, creative individual (p. 110). From this perspective, writing could be seen as both his cure and his sickness. Yet it is a sickness that is strangely productive. Anzaldua ties Chicano/a writers to their Indian heritage by describing her cathartic writing process as taking place in a trance-like, or "shamanic state" (1987, pp. 91-2), and her description of her own writing process can serve as an apt explanation of Islas' and Miguel Chico's trance-like experiences while recording history:

Living in a state of psychic unrest, in a Borderland, is what makes poets write and artists create. It is like a cactus needle embedded in the flesh. It worries itself deeper and deeper, and I keep aggravating it by poking at it. When it begins to fester I have to do something to put an end to the aggravation and to figure out why I have it. I get deep down into the place where it's rooted in my skin and pluck away at it, playing it like a musical instrument -- the fingers pressing, making the pain worse before it can get better. Then out it comes. No more discomfort, no more ambivalence. Until another needle pierces the skin. That's what writing is for me, an endless cycle of making it worse, making it better, but always making meaning out of the experience, whatever it may be (1987, p. 95)

The Cycle

I have shown how Mickie's faculty helped him to avoid pain through unconscious defense mechanisms like assumed superiority and suppression and conscious mechanisms like writing. These defense mechanisms helped his psychological wounds heal somewhat, but his wounds never completely heal. In fact, the same defense mechanisms -- or survival tools -- serve as impediments to Miguel Chico's full recovery. For example, in some ways, his superiority keeps him from accepting his flawed body.

Although he claims that he rejects his grandmother's belief that the Indian side of the Angel heritage is inferior to the Spanish side, he also internalized this notion of racial hierarchies of the body, for the narrator reminds us that "Mama Chona was still very much a part of [Mickie]" (p. 28). In suppressing the Indian side of his heritage, Mickie ignores the part of his culture that, at one time, celebrated physical differences. Leslie Marmon Silko describes this positive aspect of the Indian culture:

In the old Pueblo world, differences were celebrated as signs of the Mother Creator's grace. Persons born with exceptional physical or sexual differences were highly respected and honored because their physical differences gave them special positions as mediators between this world and the spirit world. The great Navajo medicine man of the 1920s, the Crawler, had a hunchback and could not walk upright, but he was able to heal even the most difficult cases (1997, p. 67)

In Mickie's assumption of superiority, he thus cheats himself out of the luxury of connecting with a part of himself that not only tolerates physical deviance, but celebrates it. By suppressing this side of his heritage, he causes himself to sustain unconscious wounds.

Another impediment to Mickie's full recovery is his consistent act of blaming others for his problems. The narrator says that throughout Mickie's life, "his father's sins, visited upon him, helped and hurt him with the rest of the world" (p. 97). Even as an adult, the son still blames his father for his problems. It is "his father's sins" that affect his performance "in the rest of world," not his own sins. This technique of avoiding responsibility seems to be common among middle-class Chicanos. Roberto Villareal reports that middle-class and upperclass Chicanos, or Chicano elites, are far more likely to blame society for their failures than are lower class Chicanos (1979, p. 76). It is not surprising, then, that Mickie does not resolve his love/hate relationship with his family or himself by the end of the novel. This accounts for the pessimism in the novel, which Erlinda Gonzalez-Berry senses:

One can't help but wonder what form the author/protagonist's life will take in the aftermath of his exorcism [. . .]. While it is true that a strong emotional link is established between the young Miguel Chico and the Angel clan, the author/narrator remains emotionally detached, intellectually aloof, and disturbingly reticent about his life. As such, one is left with the feeling that the text somehow closes in on itself, burying Miguel Chico alongside Mama Chona and all the other dead Angels (1984, p. 261)

In response to Gonzalez-Berry's comment, it is probable that Mickie will develop some pride in himself but that he will never completely accept his flaws, assuming that he keeps employing the same defense mechanisms. His practices of blaming others for his problems, assuming superiority over certain members of his culture, and writing his body may help him to deal with the stigmas associated with being a disabled male Chicano and, in essence, heal his psychological wounds, but these practices also have the ability to reopen wounds, making self-acceptance difficult for Mickie to achieve and sustain. Consequently, he may always have the desire to reject his disability and may struggle with feelings of inferiority, powerlessness, and shame.

In analyzing Miguel Chico's character, Islas reveals the profound hardships in overcoming the stigmas associated with the identity of the disabled male Chicano. He points out the Chicano culture's oversimplification and misrepresentation of this section of its population and seeks to provide a more accurate depiction of its disabled male. Though he confirms the power of the culture's stereotypes and traditional codes associated with the body, he also explodes traditional cultural categories by blurring their boundaries and allowing Mickie to move in and out of the spheres of the male and the female, the healthy and the sick, the acceptable and the unacceptable, the living and the dead. With The Rain God, he calls for a healthier definition of the disabled male within the Chicano culture and a healthier definition of the body within the Catholic religion. In telling his story, both Miguel Chico and Islas become wounded storytellers and wounded healers -- they give voice to the suffering, silenced community of disabled male Chicanos. As Anzaldua notes, there is no one Chicano experience (1987, p. 80); each disabled male Chicano in America has his own story to tell, yet he is also a member of a larger community which has experienced many of the trials he has encountered. Islas' work can give this community some aid in coping with the stigmas attached to being disabled in the Chicano culture and helps it to begin its own processes of liberation from traditional Mexican-American bodily constraints. In any event, Islas certainly makes other cultures aware of this community's strengths and complexities, and he alerts them to its most profound concerns.

References

Aldama, Frederick Luis. (2005). Dancing with Ghosts: A Critical Biography of Arturo Islas. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Anzaldua, Gloria. (1987). Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books.

Dow, James W. (2001). Mesoamerican Healers. eds. Brad R. Huber and Alan R. Sandstrom. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Frank, Arthur W. (1995). The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Gonzalez-Berry, Erlinda. (1984). Sensuality, Repression, and Death and Arturo Islas' The Rain God. Bilingual Review/LaVista Bilingue, 12, 258-261.

Islas, Arturo. (1984). The Rain God: A Desert Tale. New York: Avon Books.

Islas, Arturo (2003). Arturo Islas: The Uncollected Works. ed. Frederick Luis Aldama.

Houston: Arte Publico the Netherlands Press.

Lopez, Enrique G., Jr. (1998). The Intersection of Ethnicity and Sexuality in the Narrative Fiction of Three Chicano Authors: Oscar Zeta Acosta, Arturo Islas, and Michael Nava. Dissertation at Ohio State University.

Mirande,A. (1985).  The Chicano Experience: An Alternative Perspective.  Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

Niemann, Yolanda Flores. (2004). The Handbook of Chicana/o Psychology and Mental Health. eds. Robert J. Velasquez, Letitia M. Arellano, and Brian W. McNeill. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Porter, James I. (1997). Forward. The Body and Physical Difference: Discourses of Disability. eds. David T. Mitchell and Sharon L. Snyder. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Rodriguez, Barbara. (1998). A Comparative Study of Mainstream and Mexican-American Mothers' Beliefs Regarding Child-rearing, Education, Disability, and Language Impairment. Dissertation at University of Washington.

Scarry, Elaine. (1985). The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University.

Silko, Leslie Marmon. (1997). Yellow Woman and a Beauty of the Spirit: Essays on Native American Life Today. New York: Simon.

Sontag, Susan. (1978). Illlness as Metaphor. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Swain, French, and Cameron. (2003) Controversial Issues in a Disabling Society. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Thomson, Rosemarie Garland. (1997). Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. New York: Columbia University Press.

Villarreal, Roberto E. (1979). Chicano Elites and Non-Elites: An Inquiry into Social and Political Change. Palo Alto: R. & E. Research Associates, Inc.

Notes:

ⁱ For a more thorough explanation of the creation of the Chicano race, see Glory Anzaldua's seminal work Borderlands/La Frontera.

ⁱⁱ Chicano/a authors also face a double jeopardy in the publishing arena when they attempt to publish work that is representative of the modern Chicano community. They must consider both the traditional Mexican-American audience and the Anglo audience, and it is often difficult to please both audiences. It seems that if Chicano literature does not contain enough stereotypes of Mexican Americans, the Anglo culture may view the work as inauthentic. On the other hand, if it does contain stereotypes, Mexican-Americans may view it as essentializing.

ⁱⁱⁱ Is not a coincidence that The Rain God is a text that seeks to liberate certain subcultures in American society. Islas wrote during a time when oppressed subcultures were struggling to liberate themselves through vocalization. At the forefront of this liberation movement was the Gay culture -- a minority which, with pride, spoke out about society's practice of silencing its voice and denying its existence. Ethnic minorities were also striving for liberation through vocalization. The American mainstream was seeking revision of white male memoirs. This revision opened a space for Islas to discuss the queer male Chicano. These experimental times also opened up room for a disabled character who was also a major character. Rosemarie Garland Thomson notes that very few major characters in literature have also been disabled. Disabled characters are usually marginalized and treated as spectacles in fiction (9).

^iv For a better understanding of how closely Miguel Chico's character is based on Islas himself, see Frederick Luis Aldama's critical biography Dancing with Ghosts (2005).

^v Here, I wish to distinguish between Mickie's intentional suppression of his masculinity and his homosexuality. I do not intend that his homosexuality was a choice, nor do I suggest that it is a disability. It is, however, a deviance associated with the body, particularly in the Mexican-American community.

^vi Islas' colostomy surgery required his anus to be sutured, which made penetration painful for him (Aldama, 2005, p. 91).

^vii "Sinverguenza" was one of Mickie's favorite words from his childhood. It means "without shame" (Islas, 1984, p. 56).