Charles Ireland ’27

In Mario Zambrano’s novel, Lotería, the strained relationship between a family is illustrated through lotería cards, with a strong emphasis on love, or the lack thereof. Throughout the story, we follow a young girl, Luz, and her family of a sister, mother, and father as they battle racial discrimination; familial problems such as abuse, molestation, and death; and most importantly, problems with love. This novel is told through Luz’s journal, who at the start of the story is in a children’s home. Her mother is nowhere to be found, her father is in prison, and her sister is dead. Luz uses lotería cards to communicate the traumatic event she experienced, written in second person. The lotería cards each connect to a different part of Luz’s story, where at the end, they all connect to convey her journey. Without her family, she feels outcasted and alone, but she also finds solace and love within the lotería cards, a connection to her family and culture, reminiscing on good old memories, but also those that hurt. As Luz tells the story, there’s love within the family, though sometimes it shows itself in strange ways. Love plays a strong factor in the trajectory of the story, beautifully fleshed out with strong writing and the device of the game. In chapters like La Chalupa, El Borracho, and La Estrella, we follow the arc of love and its consequences for Luz’s family, three chapters which help to convey the feelings of love and of being left behind, both of which contribute to the overarching theme of the story.

We are first introduced to the idea of love within the family in the chapter La Chalupa. Here, Luz goes to a flea market with her sister Estrella and her father. At the flea market there is a woman, Alondra, who sits in a canoe surrounded by flowers. She makes bracelets for people. Luz asks her for bracelets and for each one to read a word, from the riddle for the card La Rosa. Luz explains that she likes the riddle because it reminds her of her mother. “Come, I want you now.” (Zambrano 13). The lotería card La Chalupa, symbolizes journey, adventure, or change. It features a woman in a small boat or canoe, which can be a symbol of transportation, or a movement forward or to another place. With the mention of the card, La Rosa, which symbolizes love or deep emotions, La Chalupa can be interpreted to mean a change of love, or the journey of love, which is a wonderful way to start the novel off. This chapter serves as a starting point for the journey of love throughout this story, setting up the fact that in the novel, love will change, and it will involve the mother. Through the story, love follows the path set out with this chapter, “Ven. Que. Te. Quiero. Ahora.” (13), words the mother speaks. “Quiero” can mean either want or love, an arc that the story follows. With the mother speaking that she wants her family, indicating happiness and love within the family, to the mother speaking that she loves her family; however no longer wanting what her family represents to her.

Later, we see the entire family happy for once in the chapter El Borracho, where they all bond over singing and songs. Luz dances in the living room to loud music while Estrella, a teenager, refuses to dance with her, rather sitting and flipping through magazines and writing notes to her friends, Luz’s mother and father bond over songs while her mother cleans and her father blows her kisses. Luz bonds with her drunk father, who sings loudly in the backyard. The lotería card, El Borracho, represents a drunk person and serves as a reminder that excessive drinking has consequences, and that when you’re inebriated you lack control and can be careless.

The card is usually related to issues with alcohol abuse. Luz’s father is known throughout the story to abuse alcohol, something that later is the main cause of him being in prison and a main cause for him abusing and hurting his family. This chapter, however, is one of the few chapters where Luz’s father is drunk but pleasant. He blows kisses and sings to his wife, and he dances and sings with his daughter. “Papi and I sang and danced until I got dizzy.” (83) Here in her journal, Luz conveys her love for spending time with her father. This chapter is one of the few where each family member is happy, and they enjoy each other and the company that their family brings. This sets off a striking contrast with later chapters, where the family begins their path to self-destruction.

Begins, La Estrella, “the star.” This is where every ounce of love in this family seems to die. This chapter starts with the imagery of Luz being held down by police officers, staring up and only seeing the stars above her, wishing it could be different. The police came to the house and her father is drunk, something that once brought happiness in earlier chapters, but would now become the tipping point for this one. The officers ask about Luz’s mothers’ disappearance, which had happened a little over a year ago, questioning the father about his possible involvement in her being gone. The mother, who supposedly was having an affair with Luz’s doctor, Dr. Roberto, had run away from the family, taking only a suitcase. She had left without warning, leaving the father to care for Luz and Estrella. Luz, who always had favored her father, was not as affected as Estrella, who favored her mother. Estrella had run away two days earlier, and Luz assumed it was her who went to the police and told them she thought her father had something to do with the mother being gone. Luz’s father ends up assaulting an officer, earning him an arrest. Luz, who believes to be protecting her father, grabs a shotgun. When she inevitably fires it, it doesn’t hit an officer, or a tree, or a car, but rather her sister. In this moment, Estrella, and La Estrella, are shattered and gone. The card, La Estrella symbolizes positivity and hope for the future. Luz, though not meaning to, kills this hope and positivity. She kills her future of love for her family, forever breaking it. “As they carried me to the car, facing up, all I can remember, all I could see were the stars.” (231) a powerful line written by Luz, conveying her love for her sister, and by extension, the stars (Estrella), and her guilt for killing her sister and sending her family into a life lacking love. With all aspects of her mother gone, for Estrella was especially close to her mother, even being considered an extension of her, and her father in prison, Luz is left alone in a loveless children’s home, filled with sadness and contempt for the world around her. Luz refuses to speak, only writing about lotería cards in a journal, which is how she ends up coping with this traumatic event.

In conclusion, Mario Zambrano’s novel, Lotería, is a story filled with love, and is ultimately left empty with a longing for love, but the lack of it. Luz is abandoned by her mother, her father is taken from her, and her sister is killed by the naivety of Luz herself, and her brash act to save her family, which backfires. Zambrano utilizes lotería as a story-writing tool, their meanings and symbols as prompts for each chapter, masterfully weaving a story filled with love and loss and trauma within one family. Luz endures turmoil and traumatic events where she comes to process adult themes in a very mature way, a trait she develops due over the hard situations that her family puts her through. Though perhaps if there had been more focus on love, the amount that was lost in the ending wouldn’t have been devastating. Either way, the novel, Lotería manages to create a collage of feelings: love, hate, sadness, and happiness, all within the reader.