E3W Literature | University of Texas

The Jim Sagel Papers
The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Library
The University of Texas at Austin

Reviewed by Anna Nogar

In the preface to New Mexican Chicanesque author Jim Sagel’s bilingual short story collection Más que no love it (1990), Mexican American literary critic Sergio Elizondo observes of Sagel’s writing: “Here lies the power of the author: in the truth of linguistic expression ‘as is.’ It is the use of this language that situates us in Chicano literary and linguistic territory. And that space is the best, because it isn’t fake, isn’t imposed, has developed on its own: it’s unique because it’s unequalled.” Elizondo affirms that Sagel’s use of New Mexican dialect in the stories locates Más que no love it firmly within the Chicano literary tradition. Throughout his thirty-year writing career, Sagel composed most of his poetry and fiction in his second language, the colloquial Spanish of northern New Mexico.

Sagel’s decision to write using regional bilingualism reflects more than a linguistic or creative proclivity; it demonstrates the degree to which the author himself felt a part of the community and culture about which he wrote. The body of Sagel’s bilingual, bicultural writing not only presents an extraordinary play of identity, language and acculturation, it also reflects a life in which these principles were acted out. Jim Sagel’s papers, held at the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection at The University of Texas at Austin, are thus truly unique in Hispano borderland studies. Sagel’s writing, correspondence, and personal effects reveal the creation of a literature that grew in concert with the author’s own processes of linguistic and cultural adaptation, participation, assimilation and change.

Originally from a Colorado farming family of Prussian heritage, Sagel immersed himself deeply in the culture of the Hispano community upon moving to Española, New Mexico in 1969. The characters, cultural conundrums and environments that he presents in his literary works are those of his adopted home in northern New Mexico. The Benson’s extensive collection offers a rare and intimate window into Sagel’s life and writings. The short story “Bisbee,” for example, narrates his elopement with Española native Teresa Archuleta in 1970, an event that profoundly changed the course of Sagel’s life by bringing him into her family and community. Sagel’s eulogy for his father-in-law Jacobo Archuleta beautifully expresses the author’s close relationship with the man he credits for his “real education” in language and in life. Correspondence and literary exchanges with other Mexican American authors, including Sandra Cisneros, Denise Chavez and Nasario García, demonstrate the degree to which Sagel participated in and was accepted by the community of Hispano letters. Through the documentary footage in the film The Unexpected Turn of Jim Sagel (2003), the author’s life and writing are contextualized in Sagel’s own words, and in those of his family members and peers.

By examining the Sagel collection, one can come to understand the man via the various roles of his professional life as well—as a journalist, author and educator. Sagel taught creative writing, literature and Spanish at campuses throughout northern New Mexico, while writing cultural feature articles for publications such as the Albuquerque Journal and New Mexico Magazine. At the same time, Sagel continued to develop as a creative author, penning almost exclusively bilingual, bicultural works in a variety of genres: poetry, essay, drama, novel, young adult, and even a teaching manual for bilingual creative writing courses. The extensive translations and editing in Sagel’s notebooks and drafts evidence his attention the subtleties of language, whether in Spanish or English, and attenuation to the themes and characters that appear in his work.

Sagel’s writing drew both critical praise and fire when he was awarded the Premio Casa de las Américas for his Spanish-language short story collection Tunomás Honey (1983) in 1981. Though Sagel would subsequently receive many other literary prizes, he was at the time only the second United States citizen to have received the prestigious Cuban literary award, the first being Rolando Hinojosa. The prize committee commended Sagel’s sympathetic portrayal of the struggles of the northern New Mexican Hispano community, and published the book in Cuba in Spanish under the name “Jim Sagel,” though it listed Sagel’s nationality as “Chicano.”

Sagel’s ethno-cultural categorization by the prize committee created waves within the Chicano literary community. Literary critic Juan Bruce Novoa criticized Sagel, insinuating that Sagel’s ethnicity had been misunderstood by the Casa de las Américas, and negatively comparing Sagel’s work that of Chester Seltzer, an Anglo writer who wrote under the Spanish pseudonym “Amado Muro.” Many other Chicano critics and writers, most notably Tomás Rivera, Sandra Cisneros and Rudolfo Anaya, warmly received Sagel’s work.

However, the disjuncture between Sagel’s ethnicity, and the themes and language presented in his works, proved difficult to reconcile within Chicano letters; consequently, there was a reluctance to ascribe the term “Chicano” to his works. That Sagel’s work authentically represents the people and environment of the New Mexican Hispano community is undeniable, as is that fact that his use of regional Spanish is extraordinarily precise. Nevertheless, his work has come to be called “Chicanesque,” a term denoting works that sympathetically treat subjects relevant to the Chicano community, but that are written by non-Chicano authors.

But how did Sagel identify himself in relationship to his writing? In a 1992 Confluencia interview with Pilar Rodríguez, Sagel acknowledged the mixed critical reception of his work by the Chicano community, even as he suggested that his own Spanish-language literature played an active role in preserving Hispano culture and language. When explaining why he chose to write in Spanish about northern New Mexico’s people and culture, Sagel asserted, “on one level, of course, we make those artistic decisions, but on another, I have to write about my life and this is my life.” Through the documents now accessible to scholars via the Benson’s collection, it is possible to begin to understand the life that Jim Sagel recounted in his two languages and through his dual identity.

Seen in this light, Sagel’s writing can be read as representative of a type of borderlands space. Existing in the world of the “Chicanesque,” his work is placed in an undefined category that allows it to closely approximate “Chicano,” while at the same time preventing it from being embraced by that term. Sagel’s writing meticulously, personally and intimately captures Hispano life and language in the borderlands of New Mexico, yet Sagel’s classification as a “Chicanesque” writer delimits what his work can potentially encompass and comprehend. Sagel’s work thus occupies a difficult borderlands, in which life, love, literature and language are not entirely reconciled within critical concepts of ethnicity.