Helena Maria Viramontes                                                                                    

Cory Baker, Kayla Beebout, Avery Brown 

Helena Maria Viramontes was born on February 26, 1954, in East Los Angeles.  She was one of eight siblings in a working-class Mexican-American family.  While in high school, she participated in the Chicano Movement, which tried to reverse the negative stereotypes of Mexican-Americans and advocated for land rights, farm worker rights, better education, and awareness of Mexican-American history.  She graduated from Immaculate Heart College with a B.A. in English, and earned an MFA from the University of California, Irvine.  She began writing in college and has published 2 novels, along with collections of short stories.  Currently, she is a professor of English at Cornell University, where she is the Director of Creative Writing.  

Coming from working class Hispanic family and growing up in a predominantly Hispanic area, Viramontes' work focuses on the narrative of these people. Her first novel 'Under the Feet of Jesus' tells the story of a thirteen year old migrant worker and her struggle for dignity. This is a theme carried over form her collection of short works 'The Moths and Other Stories' which focuses on the struggles of the working class and particularly the even more difficult struggles placed upon the women that are a part of it. Her work has been canonized in multiple textbooks for particular literary prowess and her astonishing realism. Her most recent novel 'Their Dogs Came with Them' focuses on the poor and forgotten of East Lost Angeles. She has organized multiple conferences resulting in several anthologies on American Literature and the place and influence of the 'Chicana' in it. 

Cornell University. "Helena Viramontes." Department of English at Cornell University. Cornell University Department of English, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.
Alaniz, Yolanda. "Helena Maria Viramontes." Helena Maria Viramontes. The Regents of the University of California, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.
Latino/Latina Literature. "Helena Maria Viramontes: Biography." Helena Maria Viramontes: Biography. University of Michigan, n.d. Web. 09 Oct. 2015.

Preguntas: 
1: What is one of the archetypal figures present in the "The Moths"?
2: How does reading the story through the perspective of the granddaughter help the reader identify the theme?
3: How does the narrator's role as a woman define her relationship with her Abuelita?