sábado, 30 de julio de 2022

Artículos LIJ-Gt: CYAL Literature in Guatemala

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Children´s and Young Adult Literature in Guatemala: A mirror turned over to face the wall

By Frieda Liliana Morales Barco

 

Reading and the national education system

During the period 1821-1847, the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Guatemala began the process of its transformation from a federal sociopolitical organization towards a Republic, consolidating in1871. A revolutionary movement followed, which helped set the economic, social and cultural foundations of the country on liberal and positivist pillars. The intention was to create a coherent discourse that bound the people together within a homogeneous culture, with a sense of unity and identity, and enabled the establishment of national symbols like the flag, the Himno Nacional (national anthem), the Coat of Arms, and so on. In other words, by this way the imagined community of the country called Guatemala[1] was became a real one.

Within this model of social organization, the implementation of the educational system was one of the key factor that ensured the development of children, and contributed to the entry into the power framework of a particular social group of Guatemalan population: ladino or mestizo[2]. The school thus played an essential role in demonstrating good models for future citizens, encouraging social trust and conveying social values. For these purposes, the national educational system was structured. The laws and regulations were created, primary schooling was declared secular, free and compulsory[3], a Ministry of Education was established under the Ministry of Foreign Relations (1872), schools for children were established from 1875, and, finally, a range of methods and teaching materials were developed to be employed within local public institutions.

In the case of reading practices, the first book used at public schools was the Constitutional Political Catechism of the Mexican Republic written by Nicolás Pizarro Suárez (1861), a text widely used in Mexico during the government of Benito Juárez.  Republished in Guatemala, it replaced the religious textbooks in public schools. This book dealt with the rights and duties of man, his guarantees, property, family and individual freedom. Many of the articles of the new Guatemalan Constitution were explained through it. Because the book was written from a declared liberal and anticlerical position, the author upholds individual freedom of petition, association, press, religion and education (Traffano, 2011: 1052). In other words, through the book the image of the modern state was outlined and disseminated to the children, the republican institutions were explained, and organization and expression of power were legitimized (Traffano, 2011: 1049). From this perspective Suárez’s book fulfilled the objectives of civic education that were being implemented in the country because of the Liberal Revolution of 1871, and well suited the purpose of making education the best vehicle for transmitting an ideal of freedom, norms, attitudes, skills, and civic and moral values. At the same time, it helped to form the basis of a "Guatemalan identity", in accordance with the national project of modernization. The Catechism thus reinforced the objectives of the new Republic; subsequently, it was hoped that a political revolution could be followed by cultural and social revolutions.

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century was a sense that these revolutions could be made possible by means of the diffusion and dissemination of diverse ideas, especially in Guatemala City, through literary societies, education conferences. Prominent educators such as José María Vela Irisarri, Santos Toruño, Sóstenes Esponda, Rafaela del Águila, Natalia Górriz de Morales and Concepción Saravia de Zirión, promoted reflection and discussion of pedagogical work in the country and their ideas influenced the structure of the rising national education system.

The Catechism was replaced in 1884 by a collection of literacy books written by Vela Irisarri; along with the Element of Spanish grammar book (1885), as they met the requirements of adaptation to the cultural identity of Guatemala (Hernández, 1984: 34) required by the Minister Antonio Bátres in 1887. These books remained in use until 1930.

Later, during the government of José María Reyna Barrios (1892-1898), despite the economic downturn that the country faced in the last five years of the century, there appeared two collections of important books: 1) Central American literature anthologies called Libros de premio (1-4); and, 2) Libros de lectura (2-6) published between 1895 and 1896 for use in elementary public schools. The intention of these collections was to use literature to foster the spirit of Central American union from early childhood, an ideal pursued by liberals. From the literary point of view, the texts included here formed a real canon of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Isthmus literature. However, the texts relate to the costumes, tradition and written culture of Central America and, especially of Guatemala, which emerged after independence, but not from that of the previous period, or to its Maya population. Projecting the tradition of the young republics born from 1821 on, these were formative books, which, by creating their own narrative voices sought to build a national identity. From this perspective, the time of origin of this proto narrative did not take into account more remote time, because there were no sources that pointed to that origin. Neither the oral and popular traditions, Spanish and indigenous, served as bases for this. The only possibility envisaged was to start building the "promised land" from a discernible presence in history, that is, events such as the discovery and conquest of America, the founding of cities, description of physical and geographical space, and through heroic songs, hymns, odes, and so on.

That is, a kind of creation myth was developed, which represented a whole image of the newborn country: it belonged to us and such possession consequently gives us the right to inherit, pass it from generation to generation so it will preserved, not be forgotten. For this reason, there was no desire to adapt or import books from outside to facilitate the understanding and learning of children. Instead, the classical literary texts of Central America writers were chosen to construct identity, because in their stories and poems breathed citizenship breathed and patriotic ideas.

At the same time, cultural products independent of school context appeared, such as the first children's newspaper, Los Niños (1890-1892), which was sold by subscription or single copies, every Sunday; and the first children's theater company organized by Justo Soret and Argimiro Valdivieso in 1897, with national amateur actors. This company remained active until the 1920s.

During the administration of the dictator Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920) his staff introduced changes in the liberal project, mainly related to search for other ways to construct identity through the national educational system and teaching methods. To do this, his political needs were sustained by the slogan "order for progress", which in practice supported the dictatorship. The model of the Nation was reinforced through a form of moral education with the introduction of the text, Moral razonada y lecturas escogidas (Rational Morality and Selected Readings) written by Rafael Spinola (1899), advisor to the president. This book, in the author´s words, is not just a compendium enclosing universal moral precepts, but is also a READING BOOK, and as such, could not consist of small number of pages, given the diversity of verse and prose pieces collected within it (xxii). The purpose behind this statement is clear: first, because the project embarked on the creation of Central American identity, the formation of a Guatemalan identity through literature was interrupted; now the guidelines of this formation would be grounded on norms, standards and principles governed by a morality, whose models were sought in the Greco-Roman classics. Second, the concept of "reading" is now to explain the meaning of words, to recite, to help memorize the moral lesson and hold it [...] forever in the heart, as verses that learned in childhood, that sometimes are not readily forgotten, or are never forgotten (xxv). From here on, the concept of reading indicates only practical features: it is utilitarian, and puts aside those emancipatory, critical, significant and reflective qualities proposed by literature.

Reading practices and the books for children were, thus, shaped by the positivist state project of modernization and progress as planned. The teaching of literature was also subject to the same pattern, which resulted in the creation of books with historical and moralizing focus but devoid of recreational aspects and aesthetic originality. Further, because literacy education no longer had the objective of creating better reading habits, especially amongst children, its teaching created only functional literates who could respond to the national liberal and economic project.

New models and the emergence of childen´s literature

During the 1920s there were major social and cultural changes that favored the development of educational reforms and creative writing in general, due to a crisis of the liberal project as a model to produce a homogeneous Guatemalan society in which all had a place, and in addition to achieve the ideal of citizenship previously aspired to. At this time, the quest for a new model was based in the social-Catholic doctrine and agnostic spiritualism, whose confluence were theosophy and heliosophy (Arzú Casaús, 2005: 292). The gaze of intellectuals also focused on indigenous roots and afrodescendants and oral and popular traditional sources to try to regenerate Guatemalan society. The intellectuals in education thought that, through art and education, in some way, a social regeneration could be possible. Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, for example, who became president of Guatemala in 1944, published Método nacional (para aprender simultáneamente dibujo, escritura y lectura) (1927), which was well received by teachers. Professor Daniel Armas published a similar work to Arévalo’s, entitled Indohispano, método global silábico (1928). Then the Nobel Prize winner Miguel Ángel Asturias, editor of the newspaper El Imparcial Collection, a series of paperbacks, published an anthology of Hans Christian Andersen tales (1928). The writer Rafael Arévalo Martínez, wrote articles alluding to the tercentenary of birth of Perrault; and Luis Martínez Montt, gained a scholarship to Switzerland where he worked with Jean Piaget. Professors like Abraham Orantes, Edelberto Torres and Luz Valle, also contributed through art and education to social regeneration could be possible.

The emergence of children´s literature is heralded in this period with the publication of Mi niño, por el hogar, por la escuela by Daniel Armas (1929), illustrated by M. Mazariegos Rosal and published by E. Cifuentes Typography in the city of Quetzaltenango. The auther met the entire cost of this publication. Then in 1932, the book was honored by the municipal corporation of Quetzaltenango, and also affirmed as a guide in elementary school by the Ministry of Education. Armas said about this book that was born due to the urgent need to provide parents and teachers with an instrument of initiation into the field of literature, especially poetry, because they had no suitable literature material to provide their children. Moreover, few writers were concerning themselves with the genre of children´s literature. Armas subsequently published Pepe y Polita (1939), Barbuchín (1940) and Cascabel (1947), because he felt that early readers needed stronger knowledge of the alphabet, and through these books he offered teachers better tools with which to engage children's imagination and creativity. It also gave them the opportunity to have good experiences with their learning and the creation of better reading and writing habits. For all of these reasons, he became, formally, the first precursor of the Guatemalan children´s and young adult literature (CYAL). His publications make it possible to begin the outline the history of children´s literature, because from that moment children´s books began to appear, most of them funded and distributed by their own authors in small runs.    




[1] The Constitutional Republic of Guatemala is characterized as a multi-ethnic nation (four villages: ladino or mestizo, Maya, Garifuna and Xinca), multicultural and multilingual (25 languages ​​are spoken, of which 22 correspond to the trunk Maya, Garifuna and then follow the Xinca), these features define it as a country with a unique heterogeneous culture. The above-mentioned ethnic groups make up a whole Guatemalan nationality and from the legal point of view, this national identity is supported by the fact they all live in a limited geographical area and be members of a regulated by a state company and a Constitution.

[2] Ladino, product mix between Creoles and Indians, was an uncomfortable early for the Kingdom of Guatemala, as it was rejected by both social groups. There were no laws to protect them and soon it became a mass moving aimlessly within the realm providing their services to the highest bidder, they were gypsies Kingdom. This situation was favorable for landlords, because it was a way to get labor much cheaper labor and, somehow evading taxes to the Crown. Hence, when this social group assumes the reins of power undoubtedly reject the other two, Creoles and Indians, and build your own universe (Martínez Peláez, 1994).

[3] The first primary school was declared a secular, free and compulsory by the State was under President Mariano Gálvez (1832).

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