Synopses & Reviews
Emma Pérez discusses the historical methodology that has created Chicano history. Then borrowing from theorists and philosophers of history such as Michel Foucault, Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Hayden White as well as from cultural feminist critics Gloria Anzaldá, Teresa de Lauretis, Antonia Castañeda, Deena González, and Chéla Sandoval the author argues that the Chicano historical narrative has often omitted gender. She poses a theory which rejects the colonizer's methodological assumptions and examines new tools for uncovering the hidden voices of Chicanas who have been relegated to silence. Within that silence, she uncovers what she describes as "third space feminism."
The text moves from geographic spaces in the Yucatán to California and Texas around the time of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Pérez examines Yucatán's socialist revolution, the international revolutionary movement El Partido Liberal Mexicano, and the Club Femenino Chapultepec. In these case studies "new voices" come into existence to shape knowledge about Chicanas.
The last chapter critiques the tale of La Malinche, the translator and alleged lover of Cortes; a recent film, Silent Tongue, the story of an Indian woman; Delgadeio, the object of desire in a popular corrido; and Selena, the slain Tex-Mex popular singer who practiced her own cultural feminism in sexualized performances.
Synopsis
"The Decolonial Imaginary is a smart, challenging book that disrupts a great deal of what we think we know... it will certainly be read seriously in Chicano/a studies." --Women's Review of Books
Emma Pérez discusses the historical methodology which has created Chicano history and argues that the historical narrative has often omitted gender. She poses a theory which rejects the colonizer's methodological assumptions and examines new tools for uncovering the hidden voices of Chicanas who have been relegated to silence.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-178) and index.
About the Author
Emma Pérez, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas, El Paso, has written numerous essays in feminist theory and is author of the novel Gulf Dreams