logo

47 pages 1 hour read

Kali Fajardo-Anstine

Woman of Light

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Background

Historical-Cultural Context: The Family History of Kali Fajardo-Anstine

In Woman of Light’s Book Club Guide, Kali Fajardo-Anstine describes her personal background, revealing how much of her family history intertwines with her fictional novel. Her description of previous generations implies the character Alfonso was her grandfather, making Lizette her grandmother Ester. She also mentions her “glamorous Auntie Lucy, gifted with the sight” and “a snake charming great uncle” (311), who appear in the story as the infant Lucille and her father Diego. Throughout the novel, Fajardo-Anstine emphasizes the ancestral background of main characters: Pidre is Indigenous Pueblo and Mexican, Simodecea is Mexican, and their daughter, Sara, has Diego and Luz with Benny, a French man. In turn, Diego and Luz identify with Lizette, a Latinx woman, referring to her as their cousin because of a shared, distant relative. Lizette marries Alfonso, a Filipino immigrant. Overall, Fajardo-Anstine emphasizes race to celebrate her own “nuanced blending of Pueblo Native American, Mexican, Filipino, and European ancestors” (311). Thus, while the novel contains fictional elements, the main characters are based on real relatives with rich lives. This decision lends credence to the novel’s setting and social issues.

Historical-Cultural Context: The Lost Territory and Westward Expansion

Characters of Mexican heritage frequently refer to “The Lost Territory.” Fajardo-Anstine makes geographical references to this area—such as stating present day Mexico lies to its south—though she does not define the Lost Territory or explain why characters use this name. Historically, the Lost Territory is the approximately 500,000 square miles ceded by Mexico to the United States following the Mexican American War in 1846-1848. In 1845, the Republic of Texas joined the United States. Mexico never officially recognized Texas and disputed its southern border, resulting in a military skirmish and one-sided war between Mexico and the US, ending with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. For 15 million dollars, the US gained land that now comprises Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California. The US’s westward expansion, particularly following the Civil War and during the Industrial Revolution, drew millions of white American citizens and immigrants to these newly opened territories.

Residents of Mexican heritage, who populated these territories before annexation by the US, experienced exclusion and discrimination despite receiving US citizenship under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In the novel, Luz feels this displacement, expressing surprise upon remembering her citizenship and home of Denver, Colorado. This marginalization was exacerbated by the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. Many Mexican nationals fled north into the US to escape the violence and search for economic opportunity. However, financial prospects diminished during the Great Depression of 1929-1941. Because economic hardship and crop failures were particularly acute in central and southern American states, many white citizens fled west into California and urban areas like Denver, creating further economic disparity. As Fajardo-Anstine asserts in her description of Mexican repatriation, employee preference was typically extended to white laborers.

In the novel, marginalization is closely tied to westward expansion—to life changes. When Pidre leaves the cloistered village of Pardona, his fellow villagers outfit him with “pots, furs and handcrafts” (xxiii) for the sake of trade—revealing Pardona’s traditional, isolated nature. When he returns in 1905, intending to show his wife Simodecea and daughters Sara and Maria Josie where he grew up, the settlement is gone. As Sara and Maria Josie ask what became of the village, Simodecea stares at a nearby railroad track—implying the encroachment of industrialization across Pueblo lands. She later observes the burgeoning tents of miners and other laborers after the discovery of radium, foreshadowing the dissolution of her family.

blurred text
blurred text
blurred text
blurred text