Understanding Contemporary Chicana Literature

Understanding Contemporary Chicana Literature
Author: Deborah L. Madsen
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2000
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9781570033797

Exploring the work of six notable authors, this text reveals characteristic themes, images and stylistic devices that make contemporary Chicana writing a vibrant and innovative part of a burgeoning Latina creativity.

Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture

Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture
Author: Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2020-10-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816540071

Colonial Legacies in Chicana/o Literature and Culture exposes the ways in which colonialism is expressed in the literary and cultural production of the U.S. Southwest, a region that has experienced at least two distinct colonial periods since the sixteenth century. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez traces how Spanish colonial texts reflect the motivation for colonial domination. She argues that layers of U.S. colonialism complicate how Chicana/o literary scholars think about Chicana/o literary and cultural production. She brings into view the experiences of Chicana/o communities that have long-standing ties to the U.S. Southwest but whose cultural heritage is tied through colonialism to multiple nations, including Spain, Mexico, and the United States. While the legacies of Chicana/o literature simultaneously uphold and challenge colonial constructs, the metaphor of the kaleidoscope makes visible the rupturing of these colonial fragments via political and social urgencies. This book challenges readers to consider the possibilities of shifting our perspectives to reflect on stories told and untold and to advocate for the inclusion of fragmented and peripheral pieces within the kaleidoscope for more complex understandings of individual and collective subjectivities. This book is intended for readers interested in how colonial legacies are performed in the U.S. Southwest, particularly in the context of New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona. Readers will relate to the book’s personal narrative thread that provides a path to understanding fragmented identities.

Chicano and Chicana Literature

Chicano and Chicana Literature
Author: Charles M. Tatum
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 233
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0816549982

The literary culture of the Spanish-speaking Southwest has its origins in a harsh frontier environment marked by episodes of intense cultural conflict, and much of the literature seeks to capture the epic experiences of conquest and settlement. The Chicano literary canon has evolved rapidly over four centuries to become one of the most dynamic, growing, and vital parts of what we know as contemporary U.S. literature. In this comprehensive examination of Chicano and Chicana literature, Charles M. Tatum brings a new and refreshing perspective to the ethnic identity of Mexican Americans. From the earliest sixteenth-century chronicles of the Spanish Period, to the poetry and narrative fiction of the second half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, and then to the flowering of all literary genres in the post–Chicano Movement years, Chicano/a literature amply reflects the hopes and aspirations as well as the frustrations and disillusionments of an often marginalized population. Exploring the work of Rudolfo Anaya, Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea, and many more, Tatum examines the important social, historical, and cultural contexts in which the writing evolved, paying special attention to the Chicano Movement and the flourishing of literary texts during the 1960s and early 1970s. Chapters provide an overview of the most important theoretical and critical approaches employed by scholars over the past forty years and survey the major trends and themes in contemporary autobiography, memoir, fiction, and poetry. The most complete and up-to-date introduction to Chicana/o literature available, this book will be an ideal reference for scholars of Hispanic and American literature. Discussion questions and suggested reading included at the end of each chapter are especially suited for classroom use.

Chicana and Chicano Mental Health

Chicana and Chicano Mental Health
Author: Yvette G. Flores
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 183
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0816599955

Spirit, mind, and heart—in traditional Mexican health beliefs all three are inherent to maintaining psychological balance. For Mexican Americans, who are both the oldest Latina/o group in the United States as well as some of the most recent arrivals, perceptions of health and illness often reflect a dual belief system that has not always been incorporated in mental health treatments. Chicana and Chicano Mental Health offers a model to understand and to address the mental health challenges and service disparities affecting Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans/Chicanos. Yvette G. Flores, who has more than thirty years of experience as a clinical psychologist, provides in-depth analysis of the major mental health challenges facing these groups: depression; anxiety disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder; substance abuse; and intimate partner violence. Using a life-cycle perspective that incorporates indigenous health beliefs, Flores examines the mental health issues affecting children and adolescents, adult men and women, and elderly Mexican Americans. Through case studies, Flores examines the importance of understanding cultural values, class position, and the gender and sexual roles and expectations Chicanas/os negotiate, as well as the legacies of migration, transculturation, and multiculturality. Chicana and Chicano Mental Health is the first book of its kind to embrace both Western and Indigenous perspectives. Ideally suited for students in psychology, social welfare, ethnic studies, and sociology, the book also provides valuable information for mental health professionals who desire a deeper understanding of the needs and strengths of the largest ethnic minority and Hispanic population group in the United States.

Chicana/o and Latina/o Fiction

Chicana/o and Latina/o Fiction
Author: Ylce Irizarry
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2016-02-15
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0252098072

In this new study, Ylce Irizarry moves beyond literature that prioritizes assimilation to examine how contemporary fiction depicts being Cuban, Dominican, Mexican, or Puerto Rican within Chicana/o and Latina/o America. Irizarry establishes four dominant categories of narrative--loss, reclamation, fracture, and new memory--that address immigration, gender and sexuality, cultural nationalisms, and neocolonialism. As she shows, narrative concerns have moved away from the weathered notions of arrival and assimilation. Contemporary Chicana/o and Latina/o literatures instead tell stories that have little, if anything, to do with integration into the Anglo-American world. The result is the creation of new memory. This reformulation of cultural membership unmasks the neocolonial story and charts the conscious engagement of cultural memory. It outlines the ways contemporary Chicana/o and Latina/o communities create belonging and memory of their ethnic origins. An engaging contribution to an important literary tradition, Chicana/o and Latina/o Fiction privileges the stories Chicanas/os and Latinas/os remember about themselves rather than the stories of those subjugating them. NACCS Book Award, National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies, 2018; MLA Prize in United States Latina and Latino and Chicana and Chicano Literary and Cultural Studies, Modern Language Association, 2017

Chicana/o Identity in a Changing U.S. Society

Chicana/o Identity in a Changing U.S. Society
Author: Aída Hurtado
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 173
Release: 2023-01-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 081655238X

What does it mean to be Chicana/o? That question might not be answered the same as it was a generation ago. As the United States witnesses a major shift in its population—from a white majority to a country where no single group predominates—the new mix not only affects relations between ethnic groups but also influences how individuals view themselves. This book addresses the development of individual and social identity within the context of these new demographic and cultural shifts. It identifies the contemporary forces that shape group identity in order to show how Chicana/os' sense of personal identity and social identity develops and how these identities are affected by changes in social relations. The authors, both nationally recognized experts in social psychology, are concerned with the subjective definitions individuals have about the social groups with which they identify, as well as with linguistic, cultural, and social contexts. Their analysis reveals what the majority of Chicanas/os experience, using examples from music, movies, and the arts to illustrate complex concepts. In considering ¿Quién Soy? ("Who Am I?"), they discuss how individuals develop a positive sense of who they are as Chicanas/os, with an emphasis on the influence of family, schools, and community. Regarding ¿Quiénes Somos? ("Who Are We?"), they explore Chicanas/os' different group memberships that define who they are as a people, particularly reviewing the colonization history of the American Southwest to show how Chicanas/os' group identity is influenced by this history. A chapter on "Language, Culture, and Community" looks at how Chicanas/os define their social identities inside and outside their communities, whether in the classroom, neighborhood, or region. In a final chapter, the authors speculate how Chicana/o identity will change as Chicanas/os become a significant proportion of the U.S. population and as such factors as immigration, intermarriage, and improvements in social standing influence the process of identification. At the end of each chapter is an engaging exercise that reinforces its main argument and shows how psychological approaches are applicable to real life. Chicana/o Identity in a Changing U.S. Society is an unprecedented introduction to psychological issues that students can relate to and understand. It complements other titles in the Mexican American Experience series to provide a balanced view of issues that affect Mexican Americans today.

...y no se lo trago la tierra / ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him

...y no se lo trago la tierra / ...And the Earth Did Not Devour Him
Author: Tomàs Rivera
Publisher: Arte Publico Press
Total Pages: 164
Release: 2015-09-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781611923391

ñI tell you, God could care less about the poor. Tell me, why must we live here like this? What have we done to deserve this? YouÍre so good and yet you suffer so much,î a young boy tells his mother in Tomàs RiveraÍs classic novel about the migrant worker experience. Outside the chicken coop that is their home, his father wails in pain from the unbearable cramps brought on by sunstroke after working in the hot fields. The young boy canÍt understand his parentsÍ faith in a god that would impose such horrible suffering, poverty and injustice on innocent people. Adapted into the award-winning film ƒand the earth did not swallow him and recipient of the first award for Chicano literature, the Premio Quinto Sol, in 1970, RiveraÍs masterpiece recounts the experiences of a Mexican-American community through the eyes of a young boy. Forced to leave their home in search of work, the migrants are exploited by farmers, shopkeepers, even other Mexican Americans, and the boy must forge his identity in the face of exploitation, death and disease, constant moving and conflicts with school officials. In this new edition of a powerful novel comprised of short vignettes, Rivera writes hauntingly about alienation, love and betrayal, man and nature, death and resurrection and the search for community.

Inventing Latinos

Inventing Latinos
Author: Laura E. Gómez
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 137
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1620977664

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by NPR An NPR Best Book of the Year, exploring the impact of Latinos’ new collective racial identity on the way Americans understand race, with a new afterword by the author Who are Latinos and where do they fit in America’s racial order? In this “timely and important examination of Latinx identity” (Ms.), Laura E. Gómez, a leading critical race scholar, argues that it is only recently that Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, Dominicans, Central Americans, and others are seeing themselves (and being seen by others) under the banner of a cohesive racial identity. And the catalyst for this emergent identity, she argues, has been the ferocity of anti-Latino racism. In what Booklist calls “an incisive study of history, complex interrogation of racial construction, and sophisticated legal argument,” Gómez “packs a knockout punch” (Publishers Weekly), illuminating for readers the fascinating race-making, unmaking, and re-making processes that Latinos have undergone over time, indelibly changing the way race functions in this country. Building on the “insightful and well-researched” (Kirkus Reviews) material of the original, the paperback features a new afterword in which the author analyzes results of the 2020 Census, providing brilliant, timely insight about how Latinos have come to self-identify.