Although I have only began to read Viramontes’ novel Their Dogs Came with Them, I can already discern a pattern of exclusion, isolation and hesitant solidarity amid these characters.  The sheer structure of the book, which hints at possible connections between the different characters but separates them in distinct, almost POV chapters, is an example of this complex detachment which keeps these stories apart but subtly unites them under a common setting, East Los Angeles. Moreover, through these relationships, elements of the gothic and chicano culture emerge.

The first unlikely friendship we are presented with is that of  the orphaned girl Ermila and her elderly neighbor Chavela. This old woman seems lonely and dissatisfied with the current state of her life since her house is about to be destroyed to make way for the imminent freeway system. This saddening fact already sets up an exclusionary aspect on the novel: those who own property on the “dead side of the street” would not be able to enjoy in the progress of the city because their memories and livelihood would “disappear forever” to make way for that evolution to happen (12). As she reveals in her wise advices to her little companion, Chavela has experienced displacement before for she abandoned her home after a terrible earthquake which left her with nothing. Viramontes uses Chavela’s memories of this natural phenomenon and her fears for the upcoming demolition of her street block as metaphor for the latent feeling of displacement Chicanos experience. The setting of the novel and its constant allusions to the Mexican modismos and culture are evident proof of its chicanismo, however, this dread produced by not having a place to claim, not truly belonging anywhere, is also a testament to the Mexican-American concerns Viramontes intended to voice.

Although her story is still undeveloped, Ermila must also have suffered that same alienating feeling because we learn that she had been forced to live in different foster homes before coming to her grandparents’ house. That lack of stability in her early years could be responsible for her shy disposition and her inability to properly communicate with the neighborhood kids. As traditional in latin households, her grandfather uses ghostly stories to foment good behavior in the rebelliously curious child. However, this form of discipline could also be interpreted as a symbolic representation of Ermine’s concealed fears. Her grandfather tells her about a little girl Renata who had vanished, suddenly abducted. Her parent’s grim residence, neglected due to their sorrow with “the carnage of dead leaves” covering the ugly garden, remained in the neighborhood as a reminder of the lost girl. This gothic children story could reveal how Ermila feels about her separation with her parents and chaos that followed (9). Having to adapt to new foster families after loosing her real parents and being taken away from them could be seen as an abduction. In the last lines of this initial chapter, the precocious Ermila asks where do all the people who disappear from her live go. She figures, with a dissolution that is wise beyond her years, that all those missing people “and  the photographed faces of her mother and father and all the other ghosts…” were preserved in time, “wrapped in tinfoil” in a unknown place that she could only dream of discovering (15). This emotive conclusion shows that despite her young age, Ermila  like Chavela suffers from a feeling of alienation and longs to feel comforted and be reunited with those she has lost.

Similarly to the protagonist Jesse of Gods Go Begging, Chavela is also tormented by the vestiges of her past adversities.  While remembering that tragic earthquake Chavela describes ” the white smell of burnt flesh chocked” which still disturb her despite the passage of time and her new location; “… that’s why I began to smoke cigarettes, to hide the white smell even over here…” she tells Ermila (7). The invasive quality of her memories create a grim and obsessive atmosphere which accentuate the novel’s gothic elements. The signs of her decaying age and consequently her unconscious flirtation with senility and death also inspire a profound feeling of dread and revulsion. The little notes that decorate her solitary home like announcements of her growing mental inability, symbolize her problematic relationship with memory: she remembers things that caused her pain but she can no longer rely on her brain in a pragmatic way. These notes also push us to recognize our own finitude, thus creating a quintessentially gothic abject reaction.

After re-living the sorrow of that fatal day of the earthquake, which made her cry so much that “if [her] grief had been a volcano, it would have torn the earth in two”, Chavela abruptly tells her visitor to return to her grandparents’ home “at least you got one”, she remarks, cementing her role as a representative of those who are abandoned by fate and left excluded (8).