ABSTRACT
The story points toward the Latino’s desire to avoid Tito’s fate, to recapture connections to the past and maintain the bonds of family and culture. Latino fiction explores the traditions of past generations as protagonists emotionally unite with “abuelas” and “abuelos” or, venturing one step further, wander among dead ancestors in search of meanings to their own lives. Given the importance of the search for cultural and spiritual identity in Latino fiction, it comes as no surprise that Latinos often structure their works around the classical “descent into the underworld” motif. Latino fiction is a manifestation of the continuous struggle to look simultaneously both north and south, to hover somewhere over a real or figurative border. Each time the writer’s imaginative round trip is completed, Latino cultural differences assert themselves and are authenticated within the mainstream literary world.
