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As if the history of Latinos in the United States weren't interesting enough already, Ilan Stavans and the cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz pour in even more excitement in their Latino USA: A Cartoon History.

source: Amazon.com

First of all, obviously this is cartoon historiography — and just the freshness of the form will keep plenty of readers turning the pages. Not that cartoon denotes "funny" (because it doesn't), but there is plenty of humor to be had, even amidst the repeated tragedies of Latino history.

Another worthwhile feature of the book is Stavans's use of four main narrators — Calavera (the skeleton-icon of Mexican identity familiar from Day of the Dead decorations), Maestra (an appealing schoolteacher figure), Toucan (a figure from magical-realism novels), and the Author himself (drawn to resemble Stavans) — along with four other recurrent minor narrators, from Cantinflas to the Cartoonist.

These narrators not only help keep the commentary interesting, but they often disagree among themselves, which builds into this single book a degree of dialog and complexity that's rarely achieved, especially in textbooks. I particularly enjoyed when the Author and the Cartoonist contradict each other (for instance, in their evaluation of Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory), hinting at what must have been a quite lively process of creating this book.

And yes, I think Latino USA really could serve as a school textbook, especially because of one very useful feature: its constant reference to other books and sources. If a student simply read this book carefully and made a list of all the books mentioned, that bibliography — from original sources and classic journalism to novels and poetry — could launch a worthwhile round of further reading.

If the book has a fault, it's in an almost exclusive focus on "great figures" in history, as if turning from one significant leader or crucial event to the next gives you a full understanding of history. To Stavans's great credit, he makes this critique himself right in the book. (See particularly p. 98.) While it may be tempting to say that the cartoon format makes such an approach almost inevitable, other cartoonists such as Joe Sacco and Marjane Satrapi have demonstrated that something more like social and cultural history is possible for cartoons.

But how can I complain about Stavans's packing this book full of the charismatic leaders and dramatic events of Latino history? There are so many names, places, and battles (literal or figurative) here that will be new to many Anglo readers, that Stavans is fully justified in his approach. English-speaking Americans certainly need to have these salient historical figures imprinted on our historical memory before we can claim they are receiving too much attention.

Considered in this review: Ilan Stavans, Latino USA: A Cartoon History, illus. Lalo Alcaraz (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

first published Oct 9, 2005