Full Description
Chicana Feminisms presents new essays on Chicana feminist thought by scholars, creative writers, and artists. This volume moves the field of Chicana feminist theory forward by examining feminist creative expression, the politics of representation, and the realities of Chicana life. Drawing on anthropology, folklore, history, literature, and psychology, the distinguished contributors combine scholarly analysis, personal observations, interviews, letters, visual art, and poetry. The collection is structured as a series of dynamic dialogues: each of the main pieces is followed by an essay responding to or elaborating on its claims. The broad range of perspectives included here highlights the diversity of Chicana experience, particularly the ways it is made more complex by differences in class, age, sexual orientation, language, and region. Together the essayists enact the contentious, passionate conversations that define Chicana feminisms.
The contributors contemplate a number of facets of Chicana experience: life on the Mexico-U.S. border, bilingualism, the problems posed by a culture of repressive sexuality, the ranchera song, and domesticana artistic production. They also look at Chicana feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, the history of Chicanas in the larger Chicano movement, autobiographical writing, and the interplay between gender and ethnicity in the movie Lone Star. Some of the essays are expansive; others—such as Norma Cantú's discussion of the writing of her fictionalized memoir Canícula—are intimate. All are committed to the transformative powers of critical inquiry and feminist theory.
Contributors. Norma Alarcón, Gabriela F. Arredondo, Ruth Behar, Maylei Blackwell, Norma E. Cantú, Sergio de la Mora, Ann duCille, Michelle Fine, Rosa Linda Fregoso, Rebecca M. Gámez, Jennifer González, Ellie Hernández, Aída Hurtado, Claire Joysmith, Norma Klahn, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Olga Nájera-Ramírez, Anna Nieto Gomez, Renato Rosaldo, Elba Rosario Sánchez, Marcia Stephenson, Jose Manuel Valenzuela, Patricia Zavella
Contents
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction: Chicana Feminisms at the Crossroads: Disruptions in Dialogue 1
1. Cartohistografia: Continente de una voz / Cartohistography: One Voice's Continent / Elba Rosario Sanchez 19
Response: Translating Herstory: A Reading of and Responses to Elba Rosario Sanchez / Renato Rosaldo 52
2. Contested Histories: Las Hijas de Cuauhtemoc, Chicana Feminisms, and Print Culture in the Chicano Movement, 1968-1973 / Maylei Blackwell 59
Response: Chicana Print Culture and Chicana Studies: A Testimony to the Development of Chicana Feminist Culture /Anna NietoGomez 90
3. The Writing of Canicula: Breaking Boundaries, Finding Forms, Norma E. Cantu 97
Response: Sad Moview Make Me Cry / Ruth Behar 109
4. Literary (Re)Mappings: Autobiographical (Dis)Placements by Chicana Writers / Norma Klahn 114
Response: (Re)Mapping mexicanidades: (Re)Locating Chicana Writings and Translation Politics / Claire Joysmith 146
5. Chronotope of Desire: Emma Perez's Gulf Dreams / Ellie Hernandez 155
Response: The Lessons of Chicana Lesbian Fictions and Theories / Sergio de la Mora 178
6. Unruly Passions: Poetics, Performance, and Gender in the Ranchera Song / Olga Najera-Ramirez 184
Response: . . . Y volver a sufrir: Nuevos acercamientos al melodrama / Jose Manuel Valenzuela Arce 211
Translation of Response: . . . And to Suffer Again: New Approaches to Melodrama / Rebecca M. Gamez 220
7. Talkin' Sex: Chicanas and Mexicanas Theorize about Silences and Sexual Pleasures / Patricia Zavella 228
Response: Questions of Pleasure / Michelle Fine 254
8. Underground Feminisms: Inocencia's Story / Aida Hurtado 260
Response: Grounding Feminisms through La Vida de Inocencia / Gabriela F. Arredondo 291
9. Domesticana: The Sensibility of Chicana Rasquachismo / Amalia Mesa-Bains 298
Response: Invention as Critique: Neologisms in Chicana Art Theory / Jennifer Gonzalez 316
10. Reproduction and Miscegenation on the Borderlands: Mapping the Maternal Body of Tejanas / Rosa Linda Fregoso 324
Response: The Sterile Cuckoo Racha: Debugging Lone Star / Ann duCille 349
11. Anzaldua's Frontera: Inscribing Gynetics / Norma Alarcon 354
Response: Inscribing Gynetics in the Bolivian Andes / Marcia Stephenson 370
Contributors 377
Index 383
