Helena María Viramontes is one of those writers standing at the vanguard of a revolution in American literature. Along with fellow purveyors of prose fiction like Sandra Cisneros and poet Lorna Dee Cervantes (among a select few others) Viramontes helped to bring the stories of Latinas and Chicana into the mainstream American letters. The revolution was part of an opening of the floodgates for this too often (and still) overlooked yet vitally productive segment of American society. Within just a decade or two of the initial publications appearing by many of these writers, Latinas would be rising to the ranks in such high profile industries as entertainment (film, TV and television), journalism, politics and law. Of perhaps incidental (or maybe something more?) interest: Viramontes, Cervantes, Cisneros and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor were all born in 1954. Seems like something was in the air that fateful year.
Despite belonging to an exclusive club, not all these woman share the same approach or perspective, though certainly issues of interest and similarities do cross over. The Latina heritage of the East L.A. native Viramontes is perhaps most symbolically embodied (if such a thing is really possible) in a single line found near the beginning of her story “Miss Clairol.” Although Viramontes made her announcement to the world of her presence on the literary scene in her short-story collection The Moths and Other Stories, this particular tales is not found there, but was instead initially published in what has since become a foundational text for the study of the Chicana revolution in literature, Chicana Creativity and Criticism: New Frontiers in American Literature which, it just so happens, was also co-edited by Viramontes. The protagonist of “Miss Clairol” is Chicana factory worker and single mother Arlene and the story opens with her nervous anticipation of big date on Saturday night. After walking to the K-Mart, Arlene and her young daughter, Champ, are in the hair care section:
“For the last few months she has been a platinum `Light Ash’ blond, before that a Miss Clairol `Flame’ redhead, before that Champ couldn't even identify the color, somewhere between orange and brown, a 'Sun Bronze.’ The only way Champ knows her mother's true hair color is by her roots which, like death, inevitably rise to the truth.”
This scene is literary perfection in the art of establishing an author’s overarching thematic pursuit. We know the color of Arlene’s “true hair color” because we know she is Hispanic. We know that we do not really need to get into the complexity of that leap of logic which essentially denies all possibility of a natural born blonde being Hispanic even though genetics clearly indicates that that denial is ridiculous. We do not need to argue the point because the point isn’t about hair color but stereotypes. That stereotype also points to Arlene’s particularities of choice when it comes to changing her hair color: yellow hair and red hair speak clearly to a more diverse population than we think of when we think of the populations of colors south of the border. And finally, the brand name Clairol is significant because in the iconic hair dye company in American history, essentially inventing the idea that women no longer needed to go to professionals to change their hair color.
In this excerpt from a single short story can be found aspects of interest which permeate the rest of the author’s fiction: cultural assimilation, search for identity and family dynamics. Arlene could well enough have driven a car to the K-Mart—if she had a car. Or she could have taken a bus rather than walking. She could also have gone shopping alone without bringing her daughter with her. Every single one of those decision contributes to the meaning of the story as not just a portrait of Arlene, but a more universalized portrait of the life of underprivileged Latinas whose reacting to the circumstances of their lives are characterized in part by an attempt to alter those circumstances with superficial changes. That a blonde Arlene can be interpreted as a rejection of the black hair which defines her genetic makeup in the eyes is about a lot more than mere cultural assimilation into the fabric of American society. What seems to be nothing more than a scene about a woman preparing for a date is really a commentary on an entire social construct.
An understanding of every other story written by Viramontes is enhanced and facilitated simply by realizing that there is much more to that trip to the K-Mart than initially appears. If a reader can begin the process of mining the hidden meanings related to the cultural experience she brings to those 58 words quoted above, it will significantly hasten and deepen the process of understanding the thousands of words comprising all her other short stories. This is not to say every Viramontes story is just a repetition of Arlene’s trip to the K-Mart, but within the stories of characters like Olga Ruiz, Martita and her pushed-to-the-limit mother, the failure of Amanda’s marriage following an abortion, Aura and her garden and others can be found Arlene’s concerns about self-identity, the pressures of assimilation and the life-altering dynamics of family tension.
