Reading comp PrepTest 128 · Section 1 · Question 4

Topic: Humanities

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Description of Mexican American literature
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Combo of English and Spanish (bicultural experiences)
  • Mexican - Sensibility (traditions, myths)
  • American - Geographical setting
  • Grounded in Mexican culture; Difference - Content and concerns

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • History; Mexican American novels
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • History - Most Mexican Americans are 1 gen removed from agrarian ancestors
  • Influence - Novels have simple structures; common themes of agricultural adversity + distance and nostalgia for tradition
  • Symbols - Land, representing cultural values (spiritual/religious)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Mexican literature; Comparison
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Based in cosmopolitan Mexico City; establishment
  • Differences - Mexican writers - Longer, more interest in cosmopolitanism and the theoretical
  • Mexican literary establishment - Looks down on Mexican American writing (regional)
  • Author - Don’t appreciate thematic richness

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author praises/explores thematic richness
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Concern with cultural transition - not absorbed into US culture or fully retain Mexican one, but create new identity (Goal)
  • Characters are “in-between”
  • Reflects elements of Mexico (romanticized) and US → Intermediate cultural identity (nostalgia + identity)

Main Point: Mexican American writers incorporate elements of both Mexican and American culture in an attempt to forge a new identity that reflects the nostalgia they have for their past and the reality of their present.

Lines 6-12 - Mexican American literature is distinguished from other literature; influences shown

Lines 15-17 - More influences

Lines 36-39 - Mexican writers criticize Mexican American writing

Lines 39-42 - The Author takes a positive stance on Mexican American writing

Lines 59-61 - The Author summarizes her view of Mexican American literature

Importance of Work - The passage is focused on Mexican American literature. The Author spends a lot of time discussing the characteristics and influences of Mexican American literature throughout the first two paragraphs. However, it’s not until Paragraph 3 that we start to get an opinion or debate. In Paragraph 3, a group that criticizes Mexican American literature is raised, and the Author closes that paragraph by stating that this group is missing something important in that literature (see below Meta-Structure for this pivot). She argues that Mexican American writing has a “thematic richness,” and she then spends the last paragraph discussing this richness. The thematic richness she focuses on “results in an intermediate cultural borderland…in service of forging a new identity.” In making this argument, she brings up elements discussed in Paragraphs 1 and 2, tying everything together. When the Author discusses what she believes makes a work important, that generally serves as the main point, as we summarized above.

Defending from Critics - While Paragraphs 1 and 2 do present some light opinion about the works of Mexican American writers, it’s much more of a survey of primary characteristics and influences on those writers. It’s not until Line 36 that we really get a viewpoint on this literature - Mexican writers look down on it as “regional” writing. That’s when the Author hops in to defend these works, saying that the Mexican literary establishment misses the “thematic richness of Mexican American writing.” So the Author defends these authors and their body of work from the critics in the Mexican literary establishment, leading to her main point that argues for this thematic richness. Since this defense builds directly to the Author’s overall opinion of Mexican American literature, we’ve already reflected it in the summary of the main point, above.

Comparisons - The passage has a variety of comparisons. It compares the Mexican and American influences on Mexican American literature in Paragraph 1, and it contrasts the literature of the Mexican establishment and Mexican American literature in Paragraph 3. These are all in service of larger points about the value of these works, so we should expect questions on them, but they don’t need to be reflected in the big picture questions.

The passage features information about American literature and culture, Mexican literature and culture, and Mexican American literature and culture. It’ll be important to keep all of these elements organized in our head as we approach the questions - which starts with recognizing that they’re distinct and are described in specific ways in the passage!