The afterlife in chicano literature : children as priests and totemic animals in Bless Me, Ultima and “The Moths”

The concept of the afterlife and the relation with the dead varies from one culture to another. In this sense, from the years of the Civil Rights Movement onwards, Chicano literature has re-appropriated Mesoamerican and Native-American beliefs that differ from those of Catholics and Anglicans alike. Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless me, Ultima and Helena María Viramontes’s short story “The Moths” share an atmosphere full of myths, beliefs and mysticism where the main characters–a boy, a girl and their grandmothers–establish a strong connection with the natural and the unnatural. Unlike most criticism, which focuses on the rites of passage from childhood into adulthood and the helping role of the grandmothers, this paper analyses the rite of passage of the grandmothers to the afterlife, emphasising the deconstruction of the ontology of life and death. Through two main mechanisms—the role of the children as priests and the relation that exists between the grandmothers’ souls and their totemic animals—this paper highlights how the authors address the cyclical component of time and history and stress the connection between the death passage and rebirth for the Chicano community.peer-reviewe

Socio-Economic Determinants Of Abortion Rates

Abortion rates are increasing all around the world, especially for young women. Our proposals for public policies to reduce unwanted pregnancies are based on an analysis of the socio-economic determinants of abortion rates. Special attention is paid to regional levels of alcohol consumption, living conditions, and public spending on health and education. We carry out estimations using data on regions in Spain from 1999 to 2004. There is empirical evidence that socioeconomic conditions, lifestyles and regional characteristics determine regional abortion rates. Our results suggest that it is important to design public policies to reduce alcohol abuse, improve citizens’ working conditions and promote gender equality through government subsidized childcare.abortion rates; unplanned pregnancy; public policies.

Are Drinkers Prone To Engage In Risky Sexual Behaviors?

Sexually transmitted diseases pose an important public health problem around the world. Although many studies have explored the link between alcohol use and risky sexual practices, the unobserved differences among individuals make it difficult to assess whether the associations are casual in nature. In order to overcome these difficulties, we have obtained data from the Spanish Health and Sexual Behavior Survey (2003) in order to analyze risky sexual behaviors using four alternative methodologies: controlling results with a rich set of variables; identifying the impact of alcohol use while assuming there is an identical selection outcome for observed and unobserved variables; estimating alcohol consumption and risky sexual behaviors simultaneously based on instrumental variables; and using reduced-form equations to analyze the impact of alcohol prices and other alcohol policies on the likelihood of risky intercourse. We provide empirical evidence that alcohol abuse might increase the probability of risky sex and, more importantly, different alcohol policies are not only effective tools for reducing alcohol demand but also for controlling risky sexual behaviors.alcohol; sexually transmitted diseases; unobserved individual heterogeneity.

New pedagogic trends towards the evaluation of educators

Un informe de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE) considera España uno de los países avanzados donde los profesores no se evalúan con regularidad. Este informe se ha hecho eco en los medios de comunicación generando un gran debate en la comunidad educativa. Tratando de arrojar luz sobre este asunto, en este artículo se analiza si la evaluación del profesorado es o debería ser una prioridad en los centros docentes.A report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) names Spain as one of the advanced countries, where public teachers are not evaluated regularly. This report has been a matter of discussion in the media generating an intense debate in the educational community. With the intention of shedding light on this issue, whether the evaluation of teachers is or ought to be a priority will be analised in this article

Victorian writers: preachers, reformers or public entertainers?

Si tenemos en cuenta el siglo diecinueve inglés, hay que mencionar que la era victoriana fue el marco de algunas circunstancias socio-económico-políticas que dieron lugar a una literatura específica. Es cierto que hay una clara división entre los primeros escritores victorianos y los últimos, pero la consideración general de que todos ellos eran a veces predicadores y reformistas y otras, animadores del público se puede dar por válida en un sentido general. Así pues, en este artículo justificaremos este hecho y analizaremos los factores más relevantes relacionados con los escritores de esta época.Taking into account the English nineteenth century, it is worth mentioning that the Victorian age was the frame of some characteristic social-economic-political circumstances that produced a specific literature. It is true that there is a clear division between Early Victorians and Late Victorians, but the general assessment of considering the Victorian writers sometimes as preachers and reformers, always as public entertainers can be accepted as valid in a general sense. Therefore, in this article the aforementioned statement will be justified, and those relevant factors that are directly related to this period writers will also be analised

Friendship and loneliness in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men

De ratones y hombres de John Steinbeck es un libro poderoso por su sencillez, por su cualidad conmovedora y por diversas razones más. Este artículo analiza el tipo de relación que comparten George y Lennie, los protagonistas principales, y también describe el papel que su sueño juega en sus vidas como una vía de escape de la sociedad en la que viven. Esta necesidad de escapar también la comparten otros personajes. Esta novela es un grito a la libertad por parte de aquellos que no son válidos en una sociedad tan limitada.John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is a powerful book, for its simplicity, for its moving quality and for many other reasons. This article will be focused on the kind of relationship George and Lennie share, the main protagonists, and the role their dream plays in their lives as a way to escape the society they live in. This need to escape will also be shared by other characters as well. This novel is a cry of freedom from those no longer valid individuals in such a restrictive society

La reapropiación de la maternidad en la obra de Ama Ata Aidoo

The image of the African mother offered by the first male African writers, rather than showing the truth about motherhood, contributes to the promotion of a negative image for women, whose identity as individuals depend on their role as mothers. Female African writers, such as Ama Ata Aidoo, have fought since the 1960s against the use of this role as a political and social tool; they have shown how the image of ‘Mother Africa’ only subdues African women. This paper studies the different concepts of motherhood that Aidoo establishes and how the Ghanaian author reappropriates motherhood in her worksLa imagen de la madre africana vertida por los primeros escritores masculinos del con tinente, lejos de mostrar la realidad de la maternidad, contribuye al fomento de una imagen negativa para la mujer, que ve sometido el desarrollo de su identidad individual a su papel de madre. Escritoras africanas, como Ama Ata Aidoo, han luchado desde la década de 1960 contra el uso de este papel como herramienta política y social, plasmando cómo la imagen de ‘la Madre África’ no hace más que someter a la mujer africana. Este artículo estudia los distintos conceptos de maternidad que Aidoo establece y cómo la autora ghanesa reapropria la maternidad a través de sus obra