63 pages • 2 hours read
George Washington Gómez: A Mexicotexan Novel
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BetaPart 3, Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Dear Old Gringo School Days”
Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary
María had previously taken Carmen and Maruca to the local grammar school for registration, but when Guálinto’s turn arrives, Feliciano decides to escort his nephew to the school himself. En route, Guálinto takes note of how all the men in Jonesville address his uncle as “Don Feliciano,” and he is proud to be the nephew of such a well-respected man.
Arriving at the school, Guálinto sees a portrait of George Washington, his namesake, for the first time. He is disappointed at the image, having expected a more masculine warrior in uniform and covered with medals. After registering for school, Guálinto is assigned to Miss Cornelia’s class. Miss Cornelia asks Feliciano what kind of name “Guálinto” is; Feliciano lies and says it is an “Indian” name.
Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary
On his first day of school, Guálinto arrives with Maruca, who abandons him almost immediately. Guálinto spots a large redheaded boy he knows as “El Colorado,” and is fearful of him.
In class, Guálinto meets Orestes Sierra, another boy from the Dos Ventidós and the son of a car mechanic. Orestes is old for his grade, having been forced to stay back a year due to a long illness. When Guálinto asks him about the class, Orestes admits that Miss Cornelia is a terror. She dislikes Orestes’ name, and so decides to call him “Arrestas,” and she is particularly fond of punishing El Colorado. When Guálinto mentions his fear of the larger boy, Orestes reassures him that El Colorado is not scary at all, but he is simply pushed into fights due to his size and reputation.
Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3 details the education systems in Texas and Jonesville. As a rule, almost all Texas schools are segregated, with white students attending separate classes and schools from Black, Hispanic, and any other students of color. Jonesville is a unique district in the state—its schools are fully integrated.
Even still, students in Miss Cornelia’s class tend to fare poorly. Not only is she a cruel instructor who enjoys tormenting the children, but her class is set up in a way that students find it more difficult to progress through high school afterwards. Miss Cornelia has earned several derogatory nicknames amongst the students, including “Vieja Tarasca,” “Zopilota,” “Bruja,” and “Guajolota.” Despite her vile nature, Miss Cornelia has the full confidence of the administration, who believe she has the right skills to “handle the little Latin Americans in her charge” (117-118).
Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary
Guálinto follows Orestes to class and accidentally bumps into a girl named María Elena Osuna, whom he knows as “La Nena Osuna,” in the hall, and he finds himself smitten with her.
In class, Miss Cornelia singles out Guálinto almost immediately for a higher dosage of humiliation than the other students. Guálinto is also harassed by some of the girls in class. El Colorado attempts to intervene on Guálinto’s behalf, but Miss Cornelia passes by at the wrong moment and accuses El Colorado of bullying Guálinto. As she scolds El Colorado for this, Guálinto says nothing and feels like a coward.
As one of their first assignments, Miss Cornelia instructs the children to transcribe their alphabet. Guálinto is one of the first in the class to finish his work, but Miss Cornelia still scolds him for including the Spanish CH, LL and Ñ in his alphabet.
After class, El Colorado forgives Guálinto’s cowardice before giving a misogynist speech on the cruelty of the girls, branding them all enemies. Guálinto agrees, but makes “one silent exception,” implied to be María Elena (124).
Part 3, Chapters 1-4 Analysis
Guálinto’s disappointing first encounter with George Washington is also one of his first revelations of a reality that opposes the ideals he expects: “He stared at the picture with disillusionment that was almost contempt. A face like an angry old woman. Long white hair. And that coat! What a man to be named after” (109). The scene serves not only to foreshadow Guálinto’s different take on life from his idealized hero, but also to speak to the unfairness of the expectations his family has placed on him. The struggle with measuring up to his namesake is not so much the highness of the bar, but how alien it is compared to his reality and experience of the world.
The novel also implies that Guálinto’s placement in the cruel Miss Cornelia’s struggling class is no accident. At registration, Miss Cornelia is said to be the only teacher with space left in her classroom, but Chapter 3 clarifies that the administration is “convinced she knew how to handle the little Latin Americans in her charge” (117-118). When in the same chapter the novel goes into detail as to how unfair the class structures of the school are—with Miss Cornelia’s first graders faring poorer than other teachers’ simply due to a logistical disadvantage—the hypocrisy of Jonesville’s integrated school system is made clear. As the novel will later continue to detail, Jonesville’s school system is staffed mainly by well-meaning but naïve and politely racist white folks, thus resulting in the covertly racist and imbalanced systems within the institution.
Guálinto’s bullying by the girls in his class and his subsequent misguided consolation by El Colorado also introduces the foundational misogyny that will dominate many of Guálinto’s relationships throughout his childhood. Combined with his infatuation for María Elena, Guálinto seems once again set up to fail thanks to unrealistic expectations.
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