Viramontes, Helena María, 1954-

Helena Maria Viramontes was born on February 26, 1954, in East Los Angeles. She grew up in a working class family with eight siblings, three brothers (Gilbert, Frank, and Serafin) and five sisters (Mary Ann, Ruthie, Rebecca, Barbara and Francis). Helena graduated from East Los Angeles' Garfield High School in 1972. She graduated from Immaculate Heart College with a B.A. in English.

Considered one of Hispanic literature's most distinguished craftsperson, Helena Maria Viramontes career began with her work for the avant-garde Chicano magazine "ChismeArte". Assigned as literary editor, she began to develop a style that reflected her understanding and upbringing in the streets of East Los Angeles. Hip, yet polished, her approach imbued her work with credibility and flare.

Viramontes created highly crafted tales of women struggling to make their lives in the barrios. However, her imagery, as in "The Moths", is often classically based and her command of language reveals years of hard study and her works are the result of numerous drafts. Viramontes powerful writing is based in politics and are ground inthe sociological reality of working-class Latinas.

From the description of Helena Maria Viramontes Papers, 1930-1997 (Bulk 1980-1997) (University of California, Santa Barbara). WorldCat record id: 429146582

Biographical Sketch

Helena Maria Viramontes was born on February 26, 1954, in East Los Angeles. She grew up in a working class family with eight siblings, three brothers (Gilbert, Frank, and Serafin) and five sisters (Mary Ann, Ruthie, Rebecca, Barbara and Francis). Helena graduated from East Los Angeles’ Garfield High School in 1972. She graduated from Immaculate Heart College with a B.A. in English.

Considered one of Hispanic literature's most distinguished craftsperson, Helena Maria Viramontes career began with her work for the avant-garde Chicano magazine "ChismeArte". Assigned as literary editor, she began to develop a style that reflected her understanding and upbringing in the streets of East Los Angeles. Hip, yet polished, her approach imbued her work with credibility and flare.

Her love of literature led her to study English and creative writing over the next two decades. Her work as a writer was put on hiatus when she married and became the mother of two children, to whom she devoted most of her time. In 1994, almost a decade after the publication of her first book, she finished her Masters of Fine Arts in creative writing. By the time she had her M.F.A degree in hand, Viramontes was already a force on the Hispanic literary scene, and her works had been canonized in important textbooks and anthologies used by academia.

Viramontes creates highly crafted tales of women struggling to make their lives in the barrios. However, her imagery, as in "The Moths," is often classically based and her command of language reveals years of hard study and her works are the result of numerous drafts. Viramontes’s powerful writing is based in politics and are ground in the sociological reality of working-class Latinas. In her conscious effort to give voice to women through her stories, she is personally battling and subverting patriarchal practices. Sonia Saldivar-Hull wrote, "Her groundbreaking narrative strategies, combined with her sociopolitical focus, situate her at the forefront of an emerging Chicana literary tradition that redefines Chicano literature and feminist theory." The feminist journal, Belles Lettres, added: "Viramontes's stories convey the impact of repression on women’s lives and graphically depict the price paid by women who dare to challenge a misogynist social system that moves rapidly to squelch their every attempt toward self-definition… The result is a rich, challenging narrative that rewards the reader with insight to the passions and torments that drive the characters."

In 1995 Viramontes won the John Dos Passos literature prize. Martha E. Cook said she received this award, for "her use of places and characters that are distinctly American, yet are not usual or stereotypical in American fiction; the amazing variety and experimentalism of her individual works of fiction; and, above all, the stunning unity of each work, with word and idea, image, symbol and theme all woven into a seamless whole." She incorporates the real stories of women struggling to survive and raise their children in a world dominated by men and where women of color face double jeopardy of racism and sexism. Through this evolutionary process, she has become a leading national Chicana fiction and non-fiction writer.

"Under the Feet of Jesus" (1996), Viramontes's first novel, is an apparently simple and direct narrative that follows the life of a thirteen-year-old migrant worker girl, but soon becomes an indictment of corporate agriculture in California and its practices of child labor and pesticide poisoning. The book is narrated from the point of view of the young girl, Estella, who also questions the limitations placed on her as a female. Reviewers see Viramontes as working in the social realist vein of cultural companies which she portrays in Under the Feet of Jesus. The Bloomsbury Review said that, "Her lush, precise prose lends beauty to this world and shows us that the struggle for dignity is as vital a struggle as survival." Her novel "Their Dogs Came with Them: A Novel (2007)" takes place in East Los Angeles in the 1960's. It continues her conversation regarding the harsh realities and social conditions of the poor. Viramontes received the Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature in 2006. Writer, Julia Alvarez, has called Viramontes "one of the important multicultural voices of American literature."

From the guide to the Helena Maria Viramontes Papers, Bulk, 1980-1997, 1930-1997, (University of California, Santa Barbara, Davidson Library, Department of Special Collections, California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives)