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Abstract
This article analyzes the structural composition of the chicana/o novel …y no se lo tragó la tierra, by Tomás Rivera, a book that has become a collective point of reference for chicana/o culture and community. Its structure will be explained, including the importance of personal and collective memory as elements that evolve every chapter as a fragmentary part of a whole. The classical concept of "art of memory" joined to the rhetoric of discourse opens a new perspective to analyze this fragmentation and helps the reader to understand the connection of its elements. Finally, the idea of "theater of memory" may be applied to the novel's chicana/o universe as a dramatic device for structuring the narrator's personal memories, achieving a final literary composition similar to a memorable, collective altarpiece full of impressive images from this community's daily struggle in the 1960s.