Comments for Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories by Chuy Ramirez

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Strawberry Fields, A Book of Short Stories by Chuy Ramirez

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Jun 30, 2010
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Review of Ramirez's Book
by: Mirta

I believe it is a must read......as an educator I would use it in its entireity or choose specific stories to teach from in high school literature class.

It is high interest for the YA Literature genre. It can be used for an Ethnic or Chicano studies class in college, but more importantly fro a yonger audience it is a coming of age story with a twist-an unsolved murder.....

Jun 30, 2010
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Review of Strawberry Fields
by: F. Velasquez

The unity of the stories in Strawberry Fields is in both the physical journey of one generation of Mexicans from Northern Mexico to South Texas and their gradual integration into American culture. The stories depict the history of a people. With the advent of the railroad and agricultural land developers in the Rio Grande Valley at the turn of the century, the need for cheap labor and the Revolution of 1910 in Mexico hasten that migration.

But it is the lives of the baby-boomer generation, Joaquín’s generation, and that generation’s inevitable divided loyalties that arise from familial and cultural demands to help earn a living and yet to move on in a majority culture which demands and purports to reward individualism that are the center of Strawberry Fields. The tensions that arise in that dynamic transition, the tensions in adolescence, the tensions between father and son, husband and wife, the myths that ethnic groups perpetuate, all fuel these vignettes.

So much in the stories is about the internal experience of the character. The stories both reveal and conceal a negative self-image held by the principal characters, Benáncio and Joaquín, father and son (Joaquín calls it the “affliction”) which fuels Joaquín’s own journey to the Strawberry Fields. Benáncio cannot forget his own history. Should Joaquín forget his? Joaquín’s self-reflexive journey back to the Strawberry Fields parallels a similar journey that his own generation has taken to get to where they are today. In so doing, Joaquín revisits a time, often painful, now often forgotten, which many of that generation will be reminded of. Will the journey repair him? Can he cast off the haunting images of his dreams? Chuy Ramirez immerses us in Benáncio’s and Joaquín’s world.

We are invited to decipher Joaquín’s encoded dreams and to make psychoanalytic inquiries. Yet, the stories are satirical, comical, and often heart-wrenching, as they chronicle in entertaining fashion Joaquín’s early years during the journey of rediscovery he has embarked upon. The stories can be enjoyed independently, but the more ambitious reader may find approaching the stories as chapters in a novel more rewarding.

—Good Reading
Pancho Velasquez

Jun 30, 2010
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Strawberry Fields Review
by: Anonymous

Upon reading the galley proofs for Strawberry Fields by Chuy Ramírez, I was immediately intrigued. Ramírez’ work, has two adolescent brothers as they find themselves locking horns with a formidable father.

Chuy Ramírez’ description of harvesting strawberries while living in a squalid labor camp is at once lyrical and sober. There is an adolescent’s sense of adventure on experiencing the world beyond his barrio, yet the wonder is tempered with a more mature portrayal of the hardships of camp life. He incorporates those experiences into the emotional crisis of Joaquín, now a successful attorney who senses that his spiritual tumult is somehow linked to that long-ago summer.

Strawberry Fields provides a subtle yet moving account of migrant farm work, but it is much more than that. Through a series of flashbacks, Joaquín first allows us to experience his world in San Felipe, the South Texas town where the decision to work in Michigan and Indiana is conceived. He recreates the barrio’s sights, sounds and mindset with an uncanny sensitivity. A writer with a myopic eye or with cultural blinders would likely have overlooked San Felipe as a stereotypical, sleepy border town, but for Ramírez it proves a treasure trove. He shows how such communities, although insulated by status and segregation, are seething with nuanced ambition and anxiety. Even minor characters possess memorable peculiarities, so that San Felipe is presented less as an abstraction than as a town made up of individuals with their idiosyncrasies.

A recurring theme in Strawberry Fields involves Joaquín’s conflictive relationship with his father, a Mexican immigrant married to a Chicana. The father sustains a somewhat schizoid relationship with his motherland, criticizing its corruption yet in the next breath defending it against American cultural influence. This ambivalence, which often characterizes expatriates, proves one of the more interesting elements in the book. He tries to transfer his nationalistic pride to his children through ritualistic trips across the border. Yet the perceptive Joaquín realizes that it’s ultimately an empty gesture, since the offspring’s native-born status virtually disqualifies them from ever being bona fide mexicanos in their father’s eyes.

The work’s secondary title, A Collection of Short Stories, leads one to expect a number of stories independent of the main plot, yet the short fiction seems more like embedded and interspersed vignettes than stand-alone material. These narrative islands throughout the book are interesting in their own right.

Once the dark mystery at the book’s center develops fully, it takes hold of one’s interest in the same way it consumes Joaquín’s energies and waking moments.

-An impressive and very interesting first novel.

Genaro González’ most recent book is A So-Called Vacation. Dr. González is currently a Professor of Psychology at the University of Texas-Pan American.

Jun 30, 2010
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Review of Strawberry Fields by Chuy Ramirez
by: Anonymous

Mis comentarios son los siguientes: The short stories of Strawberry Fields are like beautiful and colorful blouses made of delicate chiffon------revealing. The stories reveal the compassion of a mother for her seven year old son who expresses anger for the family's poverty. The stories reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Joaquín's culture. The stories reveal the transformation of a young child becoming a man......a man appreciative of his raiz (roots). This is a book that crosses color and geographic boundaries. It is a book that will touch the soul of its reader.

I became part of the book as Mr. Ramirez described the unique things that many of us from South Texas can relate to, such as the use of talcum powder by our fathers after a shower, the reading of the Sunday paper in boxer shorts, the symphonic tunes of tortilla making, the discipline with a belt, the Saturday trips to Mexico, and the significance of going to "al norte" for married couples.

Thank you for allowing me to share my sentiments on this wonderful book. –Jose Ramirez Jr.

José Ramirez, Jr., a native of Laredo, Texas, was diagnosed with Hansen's disease, more commonly known as leprosy in 1968. He is author of Squint: My Journey with Leprosy.

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