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