Their Dogs Came with Them

Their Dogs Came With Them is a novel by Helena Maria Viramontes. Viramontes was born in East Los Angeles into a Mexican American family. She attended Garfield High School and later Immaculate Heart College where she earned her BA in English Literature. During her time in school, Viramontes became deeply influenced by the Chicano Movement. Their Dogs Came With Them is Viramontes most recent work. Seventeen years in production, Their Dogs is acclaimed for its complex characters and personal, gritty writing style. The novel is largely based on Viramontes's childhood in East Los Angeles. The book focuses on the freeway construction and difficult conditions for the Mexican Americans living in this area at the time. It also explores the formation of Chicano youth gangs and their impact on Chicano communities.

Plot Summary

Helena Maria Viramontes’ novel, Their Dogs Came With Them, follows the lives of Mexican immigrants living in East Los Angeles during the 1960’s. Viramontes tells each character’s story chapter by chapter, but the lives of the characters often intermingle. Additionally, her narration style changes from past to present, giving the reader a glimpse into the character’s childhoods and how those upbringings shaped them. Each is affected differently by the growing urban landscape, intensified by freeway construction displacing homes, and the Quarantine Authority who use roadblocks to keep residents in East Los Angeles, “supposedly” protecting them from rabid animals.

Turtle, a girl so desperate to belong, acts like a boy to please her gang member brother, Luis Lil Lizard, who is resentful about having a girl for a sibling. After growing up in an abusive home environment, she too joins the McBride Homeboys and then lives on the streets when her brother goes to fight in Vietnam. Ermila, orphaned after her parents ran away, lives with her grandparents who do not understand the rapidly changing times and the younger generation. Her close group of school friends becomes her family, and together they experience the Chicano power movement as well as serious family and relationship problems. Tranquilina, the daughter of missionaries, is optimistic about religion despite witnessing horrible atrocities, like the cruel and revengeful murder of Ermila’s cousin Nacho, committed by the McBride Boys. And last there is Ben, who gets a scholarship to USC and has a chance of getting ahead, but is gravely depressed. As a child he loses his mother, and then he accidentally leads another boy in front of a truck, killing the boy. Witnesses falsely claim that Ben tried to save the boy, and thus Ben leads a life of guilt. Together, these characters, their environments, and their families, emotionally depict the struggles of being an immigrant in Los Angeles during the 1960’s.

Influences since the release

The release of Their Dogs Came With Them happened in 2007 and since then the popularity of the book is growing. Kate Soto writes in an article that Viramontes looks to critique to colonist exposing the problems ignored with the highway construction. The title and the story works to expose how the Quarantine Authority worked to control the people using the dogs as an excuse. Representing the power and government, the story illustrates how the people were mistreated and used. In an interview, Viramontes says that she write in an effort to take people to the place and the time with the people. She wants to readers to experience the book along with the characters. She writes about a place and a cultural construct that no longer exists in East LA but only exists in her memory which allows her to write fiction as she pleases(Rokitka). Viramontes’ book, Their Dogs Came With Them works to expose what she experienced as a child illustrating how those in power, the colonists, the Quarantine Authority affect those who are weak.