Chicana Feminisms: A Critical Reader

Chicana Feminisms presents new essays on Chicana feminist thought by scholars, creative writers, and artists. Destined to become a classic, 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.

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 Cantu's discussion of the writing of her fictionalized memoir Canicula - 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

Gabriela F. Arredondo is Assistant Professor of Latin American and Latina/o Studies and is completing a book on Mexicans in pre-World War II Chicago.

Aída Hurtado is Professor of Psychology and author of Voicing Chicana Feminisms: Young Women Speak Out on Sexuality and Identity.

Norma Klahn is Professor of Literature and coeditor of Las Nuevas Fronteras del Siglo XXI/New Frontiers of the 21st Century.

Olga Nájera-Ramírez is Associate Professor of Anthropology and coeditor of Chicana Traditions: Continuity and Change.

Patricia Zavella is Professor of Latin American and Latina/o Studies and coauthor of Telling to Live: Latina Feminist Testimonios, published by Duke University Press.

All of the editors teach at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Cartohistografia: continente de una voz / Cartohistography: one voice's continent / Elba Rosario Sâanchez — Response: translating herstory: a reading of and responses to Elba Rosario Sâanchez / Renato Rosaldo — Contested histories: las hijas de Cuauhtâemoc, Chicana feminisms, and print culture in the Chicano movement, 1968-1973 / Maylei Blackwell — Response: Chicana print culture and Chicana studies: a testimony to the development of Chicana feminist culture / Anna NietoGomez — The writing of Canâicula: breaking boundaries, finding forms / Norma E. Cantâu — Response: sad movies make me cry / Ruth Behar — Literary (re)mappings: autobiographical (dis)placements by Chicana writers / Norma Klahn — Response: (re)mapping Mexicanidades: (re)locating Chicana writings and translation politics / Claire Joysmith — Chronotope of desire: Emma Pâerez's Gulf dreams / Ellie Hernâandez — Response: the lessons of Chicana lesbian fictions and theories / Sergio de la Mora — Unruly passions: poetics, performance, and gender in the Ranchera song / Olga Nâajera-Ramâirez — Response: y volver a sufrir: nuevos acercamientos al melodrama / Josâe Manuel Valenzuela Arce — Translation of response: and to suffer again: new approaches to melodrama / Rebecca M. Gâamez — Talkin' sex: Chicanas and Mexicanas theorize about silences and sexual pleasures / Patricia Zavella — Response: questions of pleasure / Michelle Fine — Underground feminisms: Inocencia's story / Aâida Hurtado — Response: grounding feminisms through la vida de inocencia / Gabriela F. Arredondo — Domesticana: the sensibility of Chicana rasquachismo / Amalia Mesa-Bains — Response: invention as critique: neologisms in Chicana art theory / Jennifer Gonzâalez — Reproduction and miscegenation on the borderlands: mapping the maternal body of Tejanas / Rosa Linda Fregoso — Response: the sterile cuckoo Racha: debugging Lone star / Ann du Cille — Anzalduâua's Frontera: inscribing gynetics / Norma Alarcâon — Response: inscribing gynetics in the Bolivian Andes / Maria Stephenson.