It is somewhat amusing to read Q. D. Leavis' appraisal of the reading public's habits in modern Britain.⁽¹⁾ Surely, in New Mexico, the ambient level of literary assimilation is not quite consistent with contemporary British reality, as perceived six years ago by bibliophile Leavis. This recognition, bearing on the dichotomous nature of the Southwest's Cultural Base and that of the United Kingdom, highlights several salient factors relating to the diffusion of culture. It would not be proper to assert blandly that the culture of the U.K., due to higher literacy rates and educational attainment quotients, is necessarily "better" than the culture of the American Southwest.

Indeed, such a hypothesis would undercut the essence of "cultural studies" which runs much deeper than surface praise or condemnation. In fact, cultural diffusion patterns vary throughout the world and assume recognizable forms and processes reflective of each specific tradition and locale. Therefore, it is possible to feel confident when attempting an assessment of the impact of an isolated medium, for instance authentically documented works of fiction, on local populations. In the case of published fiction, a valid examination might be possible by adhering to some of the analytical yardsticks and tools used by Leavis to assess assimilation of values by the hopefully ever-receptive public. This analysis, therefore, will focus on the observations of Leavis and apply them to the cultural experience of New Mexico and Arizona. Two representative American works, plus Leavis' insights, will be cited and tentative conclusions formulated.

A novel is capable of communicating a bona fide cultural experience, according to Leavis.⁽²⁾ Much contemporary fiction in Britain recreates authentic experience, such as somewhat melodramatic detective fiction or documented reconstruction of truthful occurrences. This reflection of the existing cultural ambiance, through published works of fiction, in the United Kingdom is also a literary reality in the Southwestern United States, where all genres are readily found, including the poetry, essays and narrative sequences of Jimmy Santiago Baca, a Chicano writer, recipient of the American Book Award and graduate of the University of New Mexico.

Baca's use of language, in works such as his Working in the Dark: Reflections of a Poet of the Barrio⁽³⁾, is surely reflective of the bona fide cultural experience mentioned by Leavis half a world away. Baca, who had been in prison for gang-related activity, emerged, and made more than adequate use of language to expunge the painfulness of his past. He claims in a nationally published interview with Gabriel Melendez:

"The vowels, the consonants, the syllables ...

all became a sort of pyre which the past was

placed on, and burned in the flames of language."⁽⁴⁾

Baca is able to capitalize on his having been subjected to a series of intensive experiences by recording them in his works of fiction, poetry, essays and in a full feature movie script adopted by Disney Productions.⁽⁵⁾ All means of transmitting of Chicano cultural values are at his disposal. Baca's creative efforts, disseminated in a multitude of ways, have fulfilled one of Leavis' conditions that bona fide experience constitute a major element of authentic cultural diffusion. Language, for Baca, provides that vehicle and does so most effectively.

If Baca, a Southwestern Chicano author, has effectively served a regional audience in several southwestern U.S. states, much as contemporary novelists in Britain have been doing, so, too, has an exponent of Native American culture been active in ways of which Leavis might approve. In an essentially biographical account of Carl Gorman, a distinguished Navajo of the American Southwest, Henry and Georgia Greenberg combine their literary skills and record both dramatized and authentic details of Gorman's life which has forged a "bridge of understanding" between Anglo and Navajo cultures in both New Mexico and Arizona.⁽⁶⁾

Importantly, bibliophile Leavis asserts that very few people, either in the U.K., or elsewhere, we can infer, will spend money for a book they cannot assess at first glance, or about which they have not read a critique.⁽⁷⁾ In the case of Greenberg's account of Gorman's contribution to ethnic pride, stability and peace in the American Southwest, it can be seen that Leavis' statement is well taken. The Greenberg book, Power of a Navajo, would seem, by virtue of its title and its pictorial impact, to meet what we might term "Amero-British" criteria of immediate "recognizability" as a work of a largely biographical nature and as an effective means of cultural diffusion. It would be fair to classify the Greenberg work as a bio-fictitious account of a "real" individual's life because of the parochial, almost provincial, treatment of Gorman's life which takes on a "homey, idealized" overlay as the reader proceeds through the text. Yet, because much detail is authentic and verifiable, this bio-novel serves to meet the bona fide and experiential criteria laid down by Leavis, as well. The introductory passage by Gorman's son serves the purpose of a critique and informs the potential purchaser of the volume's underlying motif, one which is genuinely oriented toward the establishment of cultural and ethnic "unity in diversity," through bridging of pre-existent gaps.

What conclusions can be drawn by reassessing some of Leavis' priorities, reflective ofvalues and norms in vogue throughout the U.K., and the sample contributions of Baca and Greenberg in the American Southwest? As was asserted at the outset of our remarks, the notion of a superior culture in the U.K. can be dismissed, of course. Beyond that, the U.K.'s production of fiction, which has not been evaluated herein except obliquely through the prism of Leavis' remarks, is arguably comparable in quality and content to the production of works of culture in the American Southwest. There simply exist differences in external cultural manifestations (e.g. Stonehenge versus Pancho Villa), but not necessarily in terms of either form or process. Baca and Greenberg are every bit as effective in the dissemination of mass culture as those exponents to whom Leavis refers. Understandably, further attention would have to be given to evaluation of the intrinsic impact or effectiveness of cultural dissemination patterns in the United Kingdom and in the American Southwest; however, it is valid to assert that, for each nation, these patterns constitute viable means of mass acculturation.

1. Leavis, Q.D Fiction and the Reading Public, Penguin Books, Middlesex 1991

2. Leavis,Q.D. ibid., 22

3. Baca, J.S. A Selection of Essays , Red Crane Press, Santa Fe, New Mexico. 1992.

4. Las Americas Journal. http://www.swcp.com/~baca/interviews/melendez.html

5. Excerpted from Baca's C.V. http://www.swcp.com/~baca/

6. Greenberg, H. Power of a Navajo, Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, NM, 1996.

7. Leavis,Q.D. ibid, 31.