Chicana Literature

Research Paper # 100292

Latin-American Studies
Literature > Spanish

Chicana Literature

A look at the preservation of national identity within Chicana literature.

2,089 words () | 7 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how Chicana authors such as Julia Alvarez and Edwidge Danticat seek to gain a voice and have it heard by expressing the meaning of their lives and celebrating the lives of others from the same social order that people otherwise marginalize and ignore. The paper looks at how these authors create a narrative space that includes gender issues and how they reveal their role in the preservation of national identity.

From the Paper:

"Louis Gerard Mendoza writes about the same topic in his book Historia, in which he offers "an extended analysis of the link between historical narratives and the representation of the historical in fictional narratives and poetry" (Mendoza 38). Mendoza finds that the nature of Chicana and Chicano narratives have changed in recent years in response to contemporary ideas and changing social circumstances, and these changes have also altered "the very substance of past narratives" (Mendoza 38) by expanding our knowledge by which we make decisions. Mendoza also points out that this literature has been largely unexamined, as might be expected for a literature featuring a minority population that itself is often marginalized and ignored. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Plume, 1994.
Brown, Monica. Gang Nation: Delinquent Citizens in Puerto Rican, Chicano, and Chicana Narratives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Danticat, Edwidge. The Farming of Bones. New York: Penguin, 1998. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2001.
Haggerty, Richard A. Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1989.
Mendoza, Louis Gerard. Historia: The Literary Making of Chicana and Chicano History.