| BIOGRAPHY | TIMELINE | BOOKS |
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The Moths and Other StoriesThis was her first novel, published in 1985. It is a compilation of short stories about women of different ages, all being faced with their own struggles and conflicts. The female protagonists are Latinas trying to fight against oppression and subordination due to religion, culture, sexuality and family. Viramontes focuses on the social and cultural values that shape all her protagonists lives, and shows the audience how they struggle against these with varying results. Through her stories, Viramontes succeeds in empowering her characters with certain realizations, actions and decisions. She also uses symbolism and helps her characters find their voices through the same thing oppressive them, such as domesticity, religion and culture.
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Under the Feet of JesusHer second novel details the story of Estrella ("star" in English), a young girl whose family lives in California. Her mother, abandoned by her father, has remarried an older man. All three work as farm workers in the fields of California, and are faced with a substandard lifestyle that migrant workers are forced to live: low wages, health risks, horrible housing and living conditions and no stability. The novel follows Estrella's experiences and struggles, as a young woman and as a migrant worker. Viramontes also subtly includes her activist ideals, and inderectly comments on the injustice of agricultural policies that prefer to put profit and production over the value of it's immigrant worker's lives via the story of Alejo, Estrella's cousin whom she falls in love with and who later dies from pesticide poisoning.
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Their Dogs Came With ThemHer third and most recent novel is about a group of young women trying to find their way in East L.A. in the 1960's. Viramontes brings an odd group of friends together to learn from their own experiences and to support each other through the hard times. The character Turtle is an androgynous, homeless gang member. Tranquilina is the daughter of missionaries and finds her strength and hope in faith. Ermila who is orphaned by her parents at a young age, struggles between her own childhood and political consciousness, while Ana devotes her entire life to her mentally-ill brother. Viramontes's writing style allows us to transition from past to the present, seeing how each character's childhood and upbringing has molded them into their present day selves. Further, Viramontes also focuses deeply on the growing urban landscape and how freeway construction as well as governement-implimented authorities keeps residents of East L.A. subordinate with no room for betterment or growth.
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