Hispanic Oral Tradition: Form and Content John H. McDowell, Maria HerreraSobek and Rodolfo J. Cortina -yoy^w H. McDowell significant public events. At the more informal end, we find conversational forms such as jokes and personal ex- The nineteenth-century humanist Johann Gottfried von perience stories. Riddles and rhymes associated with the Herder distinguished "art poetry" from "natural poetry," enculturation of children are prominent in this Hispanic and he discovered in the latter "the heart and soul of corpus of oral tradition. Traditional wonder stories and a people" (Bluestein). Scholars aligned with the nation- legends are present throughout the Hispanic community. building process all around the v\/orld have frequently Proverbs come readily to the Hispanic tongue as inter- turned to the traditions that issue directly from the life locutors draw on traditional wisdom in search of under- of human communities in the effort to capture their true standing and persuasive rhetoric. Attending to the form character, to establish their authentic identities. Oral tra- and content of these enduring expressive vehicles brings dition emerges from the fabric of everyday existence; it into focus the paradoxical nature of oral traditions, which responds to the immediate and ultimate problems posed evolve even as they persist. by life in human societies. Its insights and artistry de- The persistence of corridos on the lips of Mexican rive from individual genius tempered by collective assent. American citizens, of decimas among persons of Puerto More than any other expressive product, oral literature Rican descent, the emergence oi salsa with its Afro-Cuban provides access to the wisdom and resolve of a people rhythmic foundations, these and other manifestations of acting within and sometimes against the confines of their Hispanic oral tradition attest to the irrepressible vitality of historical destiny. Hispanic communities in the United States. These tradi- The Hispanic population of the United States nourishes tions have not merely survived as a remembrance of the a remarkable body of oral tradition produced through old country; rather, they have evolved into living cultural the encounter of Native American, European and African resources answering to the needs of Hispanic peoples as prototypes, and perpetrated in the midst of the North they search out a niche in the general North American American polity. This lore conserves echoes of its origins demographic landscape. And their impact has been felt even as it forges a contemporary expressive synthesis. It far beyond the confines of the Hispanic communities, as indexes the different Spanish-American communities that the Latino musical style has mixed with other musical id- have flourished in the United States even as it provides a ioms in the artistic melting pot of modern North America. foundation for Pan-Hispanic communication and under- In the context of a nation whose ideology discourages standing. And most importantly, Hispanic oral tradition the maintenance of alternative cultural systems, the flo- in the United States offers a unique perspective on the rescence of Hispanic oral tradition is a moral victory of hopes and joys, the struggles and deceptions, that have significant proportion. marked the Hispanic experience in this Anglo-American Hispanic oral traditions circulate through word of clime. mouth and through the intervention of the mass media in Hispanic oral tradition encompasses several large in- the form of records, cassettes, television programs, radio ventories of expressive genres, each regional tradition shows, and movies. Hispanic America cherishes the po- featuring specific genres that are highly developed in that etic word, and poetic forms often exist in association with particular community. The full spectrum of oral genres music and dance. Hispanic folk poetry stands as one of found among the world's peoples can be charted among the most vital strands of folk poetry in the contemporary U. S. Latinos. At the more formal end of the continuum, United States. The prose forms, especially the narrative we find narrative and lyric poetry of the sort that graces traditions, constitute one of our nation's most remark- 218 Handbook of Hispanic Cultures in the United States: Uterature and Art Hispanic Oral Tradition: Form and Content able bodies of oral tradition. Hispanic storytelling in the the Mexican and the Caribbean, represented most abun- United States is rich in legendry, in the form of tales of dantly by the traditions of Puerto Rican and Cuban Amer- saints, heroes, witches and devils, and the Hispanic folk- icans. Other significant contributions derive from Central tale is justly famous as one of the most hardy branches American, Andean and Southern Cone immigrants to the of the old European stock of wonder and mystery tales. United States. All ofthe forms of oral tradition, the poetic and the pro- saic, have flourished among the Hispanic groups in the United States, as an evocation of a cherished homeland, Transformations within the U. S. Context and as resources for coping with travails in the adopted homeland. The United States, with its ideology of assimilation, has been a rather unfriendly climate for the perpetuation of a Hispanic oral tradition. But within U. S. Latino communi- Origins of Hispanic Oral Traditions ties, the elders have insisted on the relevance of lore and Peninsular Iberia with its strong Northern African inlay. poetry from the old country, and the younger generations Native America from the Caribbean to the Andes to the have found ingenious applications of this precious store Amazonian jungle and sub-Saharan Africa in the guise of of knowledge. It is interesting to note how these oral a hybrid slave culture that took root in tropical regions of traditions evoke a particular period in the history of the the Americas have all contributed form and substance to home country, and how they have been streamlined to the oral traditions of the New World's Hispanic peoples. deal with different settings and predicaments in the U. S. From the beginning of the Spanish presence in the New context. The presence of La llorona (weeping woman) World, the rich and diverse oral traditions of Iberia have on almost every block within Chicano neighborhoods in been transplanted in the Spanish colony and constantly the United States is a telling sign of the vitality of these reinforced through a continued pattern of contact be- traditions in their new setting. tween the mother country and its former colonies. Since Hispanic forms of oral tradition have prospered wher- the Spaniards arrived as military conquerors and then ever Latin American communities have taken root in U. S. settled in as the dominant political and economic ele- soil. The presence of community has favored the reten- ment, their language and their traditional expressive gen- tion of the Spanish language as a vital means of commu- res achieved a special saliency in the resulting cultural nication, and with the language comes the vivid world composites. But even as Spanish language and culture of Hispanic oral tradition. But the new setting has oc- achieved this eminence, it became inflected into a thou- casioned important changes in the old stock of oral tra- sand different regional varieties, each one revealing the dition. Where Hispanic people from different regions impact of substrate African and Native American configu- and countries have come together, there has been a rations, as well as the imprint of specific Spanish regional tendency for hybrid, pan-Hispanic cultural forms to de- styles. velop. Where Hispanic communities have felt the impact The situation is complex beyond belief. A diversified of their English-speaking, non-Hispanic surrounding, the Spanish inventory of traditional song and story arrives on traditional resources have moved in the direction of cre- the shores of a continent which is itself highly diverse. olization, or blending of distinct cultural traditions into a There the intruders and aboriginals work out a variety of cultural composite. In many inner-city settings, Hispanic arrangements with respect to the autonomy of these sep- traditions have come into contact with African American arate cultural strains. A third element enters the picture: traditions, creating a particular intersection of urban Black Africa with its splendid traditions of poetry, song, dance and urban Latino. Where Hispanic families have landed and story. These three elements, each one diverse in its beyond the circle of the Latino community, the reten- own right, blend in varying degree, sometimes with all tion of language and oral tradition has been a difficult three on an equal footing, sometimes with two or one and often impossible task, but sometimes accomplished of them preponderant. The resulting cultural products through the maintenance of a strong Hispanic culture are almost always synthetic, inadvertent witnesses to the within the family. process of mutual accommodation that has characterized The economic and political forces affecting U. S. Latino the formation of culture in the New World. communities have produced a wide variety of social cli- As a result, each Latin American region has evolved mates, some of them favoring the static retention of tra- its own particular version of this multiple inheritance, ditional forms, some of them favoring the adaptation of and it is these regional adaptations that have been trans- the traditional to suit the needs of emerging conditions. ported to the United States as prized cultural possessions. Whatever the scenario, it is indisputable that Hispanic The Iberian originals were first "Americanized" in regional oral tradition in the United States is an explosion of ver- Latin American settings and then further adapted to the nacular tradition giving the lie to the melting-pot version peculiar cultural climate of the United States. The two of U. S. social history. With U. S. Latinos poised to be- most important branches of this vast cultural trunk are come the largest minority group in the United States uterature and Art 219 John H.