ABSTRACT
Magdelena Barrera focused on Ana Castillo's So Far from God, in his snapshot approach to teaching Castillo, he will focus on her hybrid novel "Peel My Love" Like an Onion. In his 26 years in the English Department of California State University, San Bernardino, he taught upper-division literature courses at the Palm Desert satellite campus. There are always a few Spanish speakers in the class who volunteer to read the Spanish version of the verses. One student even asked to sing the corrido, making up her own melody to fit the words and rhythms. Because the typical corrido celebrates the exploits of Mexican outlaws on the border, it is an ironic introduction to Castillo's work. The rest of the study is devoted to how the class, divided into teams, approaches the three archetypal figures who animate the works of Castillo, Morrison, Alexie, and Hong Kingston: the Trickster, the Ghost, and the Weeping Woman.
