63 pages • 2 hours read
Américo ParedesGeorge Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1990A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
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Part 3, Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Dear Old Gringo School Days”
Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary
Miss Cornelia’s hatred of Guálinto only grows over time as he blossoms into one of the brightest students in the class. She starts calling him “Eckles” after he mispronounces “equals.” When Guálinto writes out his full Spanish name, “Guálinto Gómez García,” Miss Cornelia makes fun of him by telling the class he has married a man named García.
On the playground, Guálinto has more success. A group of larger boys accept him, including El Colorado, Orestes, and others, despite his smaller size. He feels very manly to be part of such a gang. El Colorado gets into a habit of defending Guálinto from anyone who bullies him, mostly out of sympathy for how poorly Miss Cornelia treats him.
Guálinto lands himself in a fight with Miguel Osuna, María Elena’s brother. Though he wins the fight, he and Miguel are sent to the principal’s office for discipline. The principal, Mr. Baggley, recognizes Miguel as the son of a prominent local politician, and feels his hands are tied and he must punish Guálinto regardless of what happened, but Miguel surprisingly takes responsibility for picking the fight. Mr. Baggley lets the boys go, and the two shake hands amicably in the hallway.
Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary
A new white teacher, Miss Huff, visits the class and asks the students to memorize a poem recounting the cherry tree myth of George Washington. Guálinto is so enthusiastic that he memorizes the entire poem long before anyone else in the class, and he gives a perfect rendition for Miss Huff.
Miss Huff is so impressed that she invites Guálinto to represent his class in a school assembly, where one student from each grade will give a presentation to the community on history. Guálinto is asked to give his on George Washington, and he practices after school every day leading up to the assembly with Miss Huff.
Guálinto’s presentation goes very well, and Miss Huff commends his performance to María, who reveals the truth of Guálinto’s namesake to her and Miss Cornelia. Miss Cornelia finds the translation funny, but Miss Huff applauds it.
Part 3, Chapter 7 Summary
After the assembly, Miss Cornelia begins regularly calling Guálinto “Mr. George Washington Gómez” in class. He grows to hate the name, preferring his uncle’s lie about it being an “Indian” name.
Guálinto’s infatuation for María Elena grows, and he learns more about her family. Her father, Don Onofre Osuna, is a wealthy Mexicotexan whose ancestors profited off the white cattle barons’ takeover of southern Texas. The Osunas are no longer seen as or referred to—by themselves or anyone else—as Mexican, but as “Spaniards.”
Guálinto turns to some of his friends for help but receives almost universally poor advice from them. One day he writes a note to María Elena that reads “NENA TE KIERO. PALABRA DIOMBRE POR DÍOS,” translated in English as “Nena I love you. By the word of a man and by God” (140-141). Miss Cornelia finds the note and whips him for writing love letters. She then forces him to go from class to class in the school and read the note in front of everyone, whipping him more each time. Eventually he is brought to María Elena’s class, and as he is forced to read it aloud, María Elena bursts into tears of embarrassment.
Part 3, Chapter 8 Summary
Guálinto is so humiliated by the episode and fed up with Miss Cornelia’s bullying that he knocks her down by head butting her in the stomach and flees the school.
When Guálinto arrives home, Feliciano and Santiago see the welts on him from Miss Cornelia’s whipping and threaten the school with a lawsuit. To deter them, the school reassigns Guálinto to Miss Josephine, a more reputable teacher whose class is better organized for advancement, and it places him on track to eventually join Miss Huff. Don Onofre Osuna arranges for María Elena to finish out her grammar schooling at a nearby Catholic school.
Part 3, Chapters 5-8 Analysis
These chapters further delve into the importance of names in establishing identity both to oneself and to a community. When Guálinto presents his full Spanish name and Miss Cornelia humiliates him for it, she enforces a policy of cultural assimilation that erases his Tejano heritage in favor of white norms, aided by the humiliation that plays off his own insecurities about his manliness. Later, after María admits the truth of his namesake and Miss Cornelia begins calling him “Mr. George Washington Gómez,” the novel implies that he views the name itself as a kind of betrayal of his heritage, playing into Miss Cornelia’s assimilationism. Despite Feliciano having told a lie in originally telling Miss Cornelia it is an “Indian” name, Guálinto prefers this explanation to the truth, as at least an Indian origin would not be “Gringo.”
We see this assimilationism is present in the history of the Osuna family. By labeling themselves as “Spaniards” rather than as “Mexicotexans” like the Gómezes, the Osunas—and others like them—take advantage of their status and at times their fairer skin color by passing for white, invoking Spain to highlight their historical proximity to the old world of the Anglos. Not unlike Don Santos, they employ an opportunistic and nihilistic philosophy to further themselves in the world at the expense of their people’s advancement.
The caning and note-reading episode covered in Chapters 7 and 8 is a significant turning point in Guálinto’s life, not least of which because it directly leads to him being placed on a more advanced track in his education. However, it also further solidifies the misogynistic worldview placed on him overtly by his friends and covertly by his uncle, who showers far more care and attention on Guálinto than he does Carmen or Maruca. At the climax of the violation committed by Miss Cornelia, Guálinto’s final humiliation appears in the actions of María Elena, who breaks down in tears, embarrassed that he wrote the note. When he returns home, it is two men—his uncle Feliciano and neighbor Santiago—who care for him and seek justice on his behalf.
