Vampires of El Norte

The first six chapters of the novel establish the settings, characters, and conflicts. These three aspects of the novel are inextricable because of the deep connection between the characters, their land and home, and the building conflict that threatens to take it from them, building the theme of Connection Between All Living Things. Cañas emphasizes this connection by intertwining the setting and characters using figurative language. When describing Nena and Néstor’s connection, she says that “they were a matched set, inseparable as a pair of old boots” (6). This simile expresses both the depth of their connection—without the other, they are incomplete—and helps establish the rural setting in which boots are vital to their lifestyle. Cañas reinforces the main characters’ connection to the land by expressing their feelings using comparisons to natural forces. When explaining Néstor’s guilt upon failing Nena and leaving the ranch, she says he runs “from the burgeoning, dark guilt that built like a summer storm in his chest—swift and violent, all of a sudden too heavy for his body” (23). She compares his guilt to a summer storm to emphasize that Néstor has no choice but to act upon the feeling. It is too heavy for his body, meaning it needs to be released. Similarly, describing Nena’s feelings about growing up, she says that “growing older felt like holding water in cupped hands; the harder she pressed her fingers together […] the faster it slipped away” (7). In the same way that water cannot be contained, time cannot be stopped. These metaphors convey the strength of the characters’ feelings, but they also demonstrate that they process their emotions through the land that is at the center of their lives.

Further, Nena’s relationship with her family’s land is one of kinship rather than ownership. When describing her connection to the land, Nena says that she “knew every tree that grew between la casa mayor and the spring: the oaks. the anacahuitas, the laurels. She knew which ones grew over her grandparents and infant siblings’ graves and which ones protected the carefully buried afterbirth of her siblings and cousins” (55). Emphasizing the Connection Between All Living Things, her family is inseparable from the land, the beginnings and endings of their lives literally buried in the earth, providing nutrients for the trees to continue growing. This connection demonstrates Nena’s connection to her family, establishing her priorities as a character. This also begins to form Nena’s view of the Definition of Home, establishing the importance of the land the characters spend the book defending: it is not just land, as it is to the Yanquis, but family. Nena cares for the land and its creatures as she would care for her own family, not because of the wealth she can extract from it, but because she is in a relationship with everything that lives there.

Still, as much as Nena loves the land, she feels trapped in Los Ojuelos and dreads the future that her family has chosen for her. She has always demonstrated her utility on the rancho, from doing chores when she is young to learning to heal in her 20s, yet her parents continue to view her as an object: “Ever since she was old enough to bleed, she became something to be sent away. Something to be bartered like meat or salt for a powerful relationship, in exchange for more cattle or land or vaqueros” (50). This comparison to meat and salt shows the extent to which Nena’s family objectifies her. Comparing herself to meat is particularly powerful since meat is a once-living thing that has been converted into a commodity. She believes that if she can convince her father that she is useful, like “cattle or land or vaqueros,” then perhaps he will not send her away. To combat this issue of objectification, Nena asks her brother Félix to speak on her behalf: due to her parents’ misogyny, “Nena and Félix could repeat the exact same sentence, yet Mamá and Papá would always listen to Félix” (52). While this tactic usually works for individual requests, it reinforces her subordinate position to her brother rather than confronting her parents so that they see her differently. Nena’s struggle for control over her future establishes the Importance of Freedom that grows throughout the novel until she is forced to seize autonomy over herself.

Finally, the opening chapters foreshadow the role that vampires will play as supernatural representatives of the evils of colonialism. In the first chapter, Nena says that watching the Anglos approach her father is “like seeing El Cuco materialize before la casa mayor […] These were the creatures of tall tales and nightmares come to life” (4). Before this comparison, Nena reflects upon Abuela’s stories about El Cuco, a monster that can shape-shift into human form and targets children. As Nena grows up and observes more about the ways people hurt each other, she begins to fear monsters in real life more than the mythical ones in the folktales. Nena’s comparison between El Cuco and the Anglos foreshadows the reveal not only of vampires as the creatures causing susto but also that the vampires are being manipulated by Anglos to cause harm to Mexicans.