Ruben Salaz-Marquez Biography

Although considering himself a southwestern rather than a New Mexican writer, Rubén Sálaz-Márquez belongs to the tradition of the New Mexico writers who revere and lament the passing of time-honored ways of life, be they Indian or Hispanic. His poignant and often humorous descriptions of family life use the lessons of the past as guides to living in the ever-changing present.

Rubén Darío Sálaz-Márquez was born in Belen, New Mexico, on 21 November 1935 to Fernando Sálaz and the former Lucy Márquez. As a boy, passing through several Indian pueblos on the frequent trips between his hometown and that of his grandmother, Rubén first became interested in Native Americans and their traditions. He was brought up in a traditional Hispanic setting, but, during his years as a college student at the University of New Mexico, from which he received his B.A. in history in 1958 and his M.A. in school administration in 1961, Sálaz-Márquez became aware of the negative stereotypes perpetuated about the Hispanic heritage in America. This prejudice piqued his desire to disseminate the truths of the Hispanic experience past and present.

Heartland (1978), Sálaz-Márquez's first foray into fiction, is a collection of ten short stories with contemporary and historical time frames. He intended that the stories be representational of the Southwest as a whole, but the geographical and psychological landscapes of the book are largely New Mexican. The stories with historical backgrounds, such as "Mistress of the Plains" and "Cibolero" (Buffalo Hunter), present Sálaz-Márquez's version of the life-styles and cultures of the long-defunct, pre-Anglo-American occupations by the mustangers and the ciboleros of what is now New Mexico. The Hispanics in these two stories are seen as sober and enterprising, with high morals. They are as one with their harsh environment. These people possess much freedom, but they are also bound together by a belief system that puts emphasis on family and communal life in harmony with nature. The outside world, particularly Anglo-Americans slowly encroaching on their homeland, spells disaster for the future of the traditional Hispanic culture.

This theme of the wise, native Hispanic or Indian contrasted with the aggressive righteousness of the conquering hordes is strongly reiterated in the stories "The Race" and "Liberation." In the former an Apache brave escapes the sadistic captivity of a cavalryman through sheer cunning and natural survival instinct, even in the face of great odds. In a more comedic mode, but no less serious in intent, "Liberation" details the bumbling, mock-heroic attempts of Anglo-Americans in California to force the independence/statehood question on perplexed but patient Hispanic leaders.

The strength of Sálaz-Márquez's collection lies in his treatment of contemporary Hispanic family life in New Mexico, explored in "Acculturation," "The Adobe Abode," and "The Last Penitente." In these stories the Hispanic protagonists are struggling to hold on to their cultural values and traditions in the face of overwhelming assimilation pressures. They face the ongoing changes with a mixture of humor and a sentimental longing for the pastoral way of life of their ancestors. "Acculturation" uses a simple breakfast conversation between a father and son to detail a subtle exploration of racial awareness and family togetherness. A Hispanic family's visit to the rural house of the father's elderly mother in "The Adobe Abode" becomes an elegiac look at traditional values and simple rural existence in contrast to the everyday stresses and assimilation pressures that must be faced in modern city life. In "The Last Penitente" a young Hispanic scholar returns to his small New Mexico village and discovers through conversations with a village elder the reality and motivations behind the mysterious and much-maligned group called the Penitentes, of the northern New Mexican mountains. Again the contrasting worlds of two different generations of Hispanics is brought into focus.

Critical attention for the collection has been confined to newspaper reviewers in New Mexico. Yet the reviews have all been favorable if not incisive, an example being the one in the Albuquerque Journal of 24 December 1978, which noted that "the stories in Heartland are fascinatingly told. The author's background in history makes the reading of the tales interesting and compelling."

In 1980 Sálaz-Márquez released the first part of a proposed trilogy on the life of the Shawnee Indian chief Tecumseh. An exercise in historical narrative fiction, the novel was an attempt, in the words of Sálaz-Márquez in the Albuquerque Journal (5 October 1980), "to get a balance between the Indian point of view and that of the non-Indian historians." Moving away from the South-west tableaus of Heartland and using as a setting the Ohio River valley in the American Revolution era, Sálaz-Márquez nevertheless returns to emphases on the virtue of family unity and on wistfulness for the days when it was possible to achieve communal bliss within an unthreatened monocultural environment. And again, invading Anglo-Americans are the disruptive and destructive forces.

I Am Tecumseh!: Book 1 describes Tecumseh's early years spent in rather idyllic circumstances, and then moves forward gradually to the destruction of and his separation from his immediate family, largely due to the onslaught from the eastern settlers. Tecumseh, whom Sálaz-Márquez considers one of the greatest Americans, is described in classic heroic-warrior terms. He represents all the accumulated wisdom, spirituality, and foresight of the Native American cultures. All of the acculturation he receives as a child from his immediate family and the elders of the tribe infuses within Tecumseh the requisites of sagacious leadership. Around the central focus on Tecumseh, the book introduces a varied cast of historical and fictional personalities both Indian and white, who provide the set of circumstances and the environment that Tecumseh must learn from and react to. Critically the book went unrecognized, possibly due to the shift from the southwestern locales of Sálaz-Márquez's earlier collection, thus foregoing the New Mexican critical attention largely focused on regional themes.

In November 1983 Sálaz-Márquez presented Embassy Hostage, a play that recounts the harrowing experiences of the protagonist Fernando Márquez, a captive Hispanic marine sergeant from New Mexico, in the early days of the Iranian hostage situation at the Tehran U.S. embassy. Through the rhetorical dialogue of the Iranian captors, in a series of interrogation scenes, and the internal dialogue of Márquez, in solitary flashbacks, Sálaz-Márquez ponders the plight and treatment of racial minorities worldwide at the hands of white Americans and their government. The bleak view of racism is contrasted with the promise shown in the companionship of Márquez's interracial group of acquaintances in the embassy. Sálaz-Márquez also explores the interesting and complex question of allegiance and patriotism to a country that has actively practiced prejudice against minorities.

Critical attention again remained local and was largely favorable. However, critics noted the need for extensive editing, particularly of an extended comedic scene containing a discourse on flatulence. Concerns about overdone polemics and problems of narrative focus were also evinced. K.C. Compton, writing in the Albuquerque Journal (17 November 1983), complained "many scenes seem tangential and others are awfully heavyhanded." The same reviewer also noted that "getting a clear sense of the playwright's message is no easy task."

The year 1985 saw the release of I Am Tecumseh!: Book 2, which picks up chronologically from the antecedent Tecumseh novel. In the post-American independence era in the late eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries, Tecumseh comes into his seemingly predestined place as the leader of not only his people but also other tribes in a loose confederation. Tecumseh's people, with the other tribes of the region, face and attempt to resist the unchecked spread of white settlers into the West. This struggle for cultural survival in the midst of an onslaught represents a return to a popular theme in Sálaz-Márquez's fiction.

In the 1985 novel less emphasis is placed on familial aspects of Tecumseh's life; instead Sálaz-Márquez places him in a national, historical perspective. The novel introduces many actual historical luminaries and events, thus it often has more the feel of narrative history rather than fiction. This novel has received little critical attention, and thus it has languished in relative obscurity.

The vagaries of survival of cultural and individual identity in times of rapid change and forced assimilation, best brought to the fore in the short stories of Heartland, remain the major thematic concerns of Rubén Sálaz-Márquez. And, though firmly in the sentimental school of New Mexican writers, Sálaz-Márquez ranges far afield from the state in his attempts to document the effects of ongoing change in other cultures.