The book “A Cross and a Star” by Agosin depicts life grievances and hardships faced by Jewish families in Latin America and Chile. The author depicts her childhood and the relations of her family with the native population. During the middle of the 20th century, Jewish people were faced with segregation and discrimination in all aspects of life.
Agosin depicts that her family escaped the Holocaust and moved to Chile. Thus, in this country, they were not safe and protected from cultural and national envy and racism. In Chile, Jewish communities came under increasing pressure from about the 1940s. These pressures were economic and cultural–and finally threatened their lives as well. The concept of Jewish cultural activity as separate from religion fared no better in the minds of the leadership. Agosin depicts her first memories as: “impoverished and humble country known as Chile” (Agosin 3). The arrival of a large number of workers willing to work for low wages roused anti-Semitic hostility. Jews moving into inexpensive housing and other areas roused opposition in the local councils and residents. Having so many new tenants looking for lodging allowed the landlords to raise rents. Adding new elements into the cultural conservative pattern of these districts caused the older residents to complain about the habits and mannerisms of the newcomers. When pogroms and other anti-Semitic actions all through Latin America shattered the hope of assimilation and social acceptance by many Jews, the concept of a Jewish homeland, phrased in the form of nationalism current at the time among many different groups, began to gain some credence Zionism ran into considerable opposition among the Jews at first.
Similar ideas are expressed by other authors Armistead et al (2001) and King (2004) who claim that some rabbis saw Zionism as a tool of the assimilationists, while many intellectuals scoffed at the idea as being impractical in that it suggested moving sophisticated city dwellers into the primitive desert that Palestine was at the time. Agosin depicts that many also objected to anything that would set the Jews further apart from their neighbors. They were also afraid that agitation would equate the concept of a Jewish national state with the propaganda that Jews were not patriotic and loyal to their state of residence.
Agosin depicts that the whole concept of learning, always respected in Jewish culture, became interwoven with the new methods of achieving social action. An ever-increasing number of Jews sought to study medicine instead of attending the traditional yeshivas. Agosin depicts: “good faith which represent medicine’s most noble task. Some antisemitic doctors would humiliate Moses, ask him cruel questions” (Agosin 171). Agosin underlines that many of her relatives attended the University: “for this reason he lived in my home, which had been converted into a boardinghouse for poor relatives who came to study in the capital” (164). Since the number of Jews admitted to the universities was severely restricted by quotas, many of these students went to universities in Austria and Germany, where they made up as much as 15 percent of the total student body. For women, the field of social work as a profession instead of merely charitable work opened up (King 48). These occupations became a source of pride by students and their relatives, especially among the more secular Jews. The study of law was also a matter of pride since the law required both learning and dignity. Lawyers came out of a different tradition, that of shadlan, or intermediary between the Jewish community and the government. These intermediaries had to be skilled in using connections, flattery, and bribery since officials ruled as much by whim as by rigid application of the rules. When it was a matter of relief from taxes or obtaining a license or an exemption from military conscription, the shadlan often handled the matter (King 43).
Agosin pays special attention to the dwelling and ghettoes of Jews. she depicts that the poor ghetto dweller had no money for books and knew the ghetto life all too well from firsthand experience to want to read about it. Agosin stories gave a connection with the culture of small-town and village Jews, romanticized a bit perhaps, but with its flavor and characters intact. They had trouble acculturating to the cities and even more trouble acculturating to the dominant Christian society of the city, finding that the shtetl was more human than the cities in which they lived and worked (King 92). During this period of competition, revival, and reappraisal of goals, the Society renewed its historic emphasis on the Bible more than any other, justified its existence in the eyes of many Jews. It also felt a special communal responsibility, because Jewish pride was at stake. The Bible, after all, was the one Jewish book that the nonJewish population revered. What made renewed emphasis on the Bible particularly important was the religious atmosphere of the day. A great wave of interest in the Bible accompanied the postwar religious revival in Chile, affecting Jews and Christians alike, and resulting in a tremendous upsurge in the sale of Bibles and books about it; even a spate of Bible novels. Agosin writes: “Perhaps from that time I preferred the Jewish religion at all costs,” (Agosin 112). For the most part, this was the Bible offered within a Christian framework that Jews found thoroughly alienating.
Agosin depicts that in a world where citizenship is tenuous and differences of any kind can be life-threatening, the return of repressed Jewish memories overwhelms these characters. In this universe of discourse, political responses reveal themselves as linguistic phenomena—as an awareness of the demands of two and three languages and cultural codes akin to (but even more complicated than) willingness to put his bilingualism into play. Nevertheless, their memories are also resources for liberating possibilities, showing them what citizenship means and suggesting the outlines of a democratic engendering of sexual roles. Even as the conditions of modern alienation attack the self with such force that strategies for maintaining sanity become ever more prominent in these fictions, forgetfulness is not possible and irony serves as the most fitting response to the absurdity of this life (Papiernik 55). Their characters cannot rely on the communal supports of organized traditional Jewish life, the ritual structure of Latin Catholicism, nor the possibility of individualistic self-realization; neither education nor desire nor self-abandoning sexuality provides an adequate language for their reality, yet the search for an encompassing, comprehensive code is not abandoned (King 101). Agosin discusses that as the situation worsens for the Jews, their symbols of faith and trust begin to fail them, and Christians abuse religious symbols to torment them. Isaac’s former friends, who represent Christian authority and the church, play dangerous, diabolical games at his expense (Papiernik 58).
Subject to prejudice, discrimination, and segregation, members of the Jewish community often found it wise to avoid visibility that could lead to victimization by the officials in power. Many lived as Jews, or those who appeared on the surface to follow the beliefs and rituals of the Catholic church as New Christians but maintained their adherence to the Mosaic code of law in secret, in fear of the Inquisition. Because crypto-Jews only feigned formal assimilation and union with the majority, they were called “marranos” (a pejorative word derived from “pigs” that connotes a false profession of belief) (Armistead et al 82). Agosin emphasizes the Jewish identity of her characters by including not only the Hebrew language but also the enactment of important events in the Jewish life cycle from birth to death. It is not just that a casual reference is made to circumcision, a wedding, a funeral, or the weekly Sabbath observances, but that the appropriate linguistic and kinesic signs are included on stage as verification of the Jewish nature of her characters. She documents the religious practices in the same way that she makes use of the ample primary sources in the archives of the Inquisition and the historical documents that relate to the lives of the family. Agosin uses the techniques of documentary to validate the somewhat controversial material and to suggest her dispassionate perspective and the explosive topic of persecution and torture. Instead of following a chronological development of events, Agosin organizes the episodes to stress thematic developments. She encourages the audience to witness events and maintain at all times the perspective of the judge, for the impartial judge was the participant missing from the drama (Papiernik 62).
The regime of Pinochet faced the Agosin family to move to Georgia. In this new country, Agosin was perceived as a Jewish Latina and an alien. Overdetermined and condensed, this compressed space makes desire possible. As the internal images of desire and external environment are overlaid upon each other in these urbane fictions, they remind us of the simultaneous rise of the modem western city and the way of seeing brought on by photography, helping us to recover the informing force of the past as part of the work of the present moment. In this novel, past difficulties become challenges to overcome and opportunities seized. The looming force of the large urban centers of Georgia serves as a touchstone for successful urban life. Nevertheless, the self-parodying effort of these volunteers to attain a heroic life echoes that of the liberators of Brazil and Latin America and their efforts at adventure in devising a plan. Agosin’s extreme fragility colors the general perception of her identity. Because the Jews attribute cosmic significance to their prayers as well as to their actions, they strive for a harmonious balance between the “upper” and the “lower” worlds to prevent disorder and chaos (Armistead et al 51).
Agosin shows that the official interpretation of the role of ethnic groups in history may not reflect the “true” situation, but represents only a version of events motivated by a particular ideology. By giving voice to different indigenous peoples, Agosin reminds readers that the ethnic differentiation among the various indigenous populations at the time of the conquest had been transformed by the Chilean conquistadors so that all native people were considered part of a single ethnic category (Armistead et al 51). The creation and refining of speculation about “the other” have commanded the interest of the Hebrew imagination. Biblical form, the literary gesture by which the covenant is articulated— that is to say, the historical proceedings between Yahweh and his people— formulates the connection between subject and object or between knowledge and its object, expressing a sense of dependence.
The problems of Jewish identity are derived principally from two sources: the Jew’s desire to integrate into a new world, and his faithfulness to the Jewish tradition. The Jewish social status is very similar to that of other minority groups which also experience marginalization. At the same time that these people struggle to maintain their bonds and the protection of their group, they strive to integrate with the majority who, though well-intentioned and receptive, are often full of prejudices that could easily lead to discrimination. But the Jewish identity crisis is even more complex than that of other immigrant groups because, besides retaining the value system of the country they left behind (Poland, Germany, Russia, etc.), they also retain the religious/social values of the Jewish tradition. Both of these sets of values need to be reconciled with the cultural system of the society they are joining. Thus, a fictional world emerges that is structured by a web of intermingled motifs, such as persecution, exile, integration with a new world, all of them having as thematic focus or dominant motif the crisis of identity (Armistead et al 41). The intimate world of the family is unveiled from the ingenious and wondering perspective of the child who witnesses the vicissitudes of his family threatened by conflicts arising from his father’s constant failure in business ventures, from contextual hostile forces that obstruct the family’s integration into the Chilean milieu, and from the persecution and extermination of the Jews in Europe, the psychological and social impact of which is being felt not only in the family circle but also in Chile and Latin America.
In sum, Agosin depicts that Jews did not feel safe in Latin American countries and Georgia was faced with discrimination and loss of national identity. They were always perceived as the other. While in many cases the subject related to this “other” has appeared as a mode of interaction, it has also served as an instrument of mastery and domination.
Works Cited
Agosin, M. A Cross and a Star: Memoirs of a Jewish Girl in Chile. The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1997.
Armistead, S. G., Caspi, M. M., Ranmgarten, M. Jewish Culture and the Hispanic World: Essays in Memory of Joseph H. Silverman. Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic Monographs, 2001.
King, J. The Cambridge Companion to Modern Latin American Culture. Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Papiernik, Ch. Unbroken: From Auschwitz to Buenos Aires. University of New Mexico Press, 2004.