Vivancos Pérez - 2013 - Radical Chicana Poetics

Radical Chicana Poetics
ISBN: 9781137343581
DOI: 10.1057/9781137343581
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RADICAL CHICANA POETICS
10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

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LITERATURES OF THE A MERICAS
About the Series
This series seeks to bring forth contemporary critical interventions within
a hemispheric perspective, with an emphasis on perspectives from Latin
America. Books in the series will highlight work that explores concerns in
literature in different cultural contexts across historical and geographical

boundaries and will also include work on the specific Latina/o realities in
the United States. Designed to explore key questions confronting contempo-
rary issues of literary and cultural import, Literatures of the Americas will be
rooted in traditional approaches to literary criticism but will seek to include
cutting-edge scholarship using theories from postcolonial, critical race, and
ecofeminist approaches.
Series Editor
Norma E. Cant is professor of English and US Latino Studies at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City and professor emerita from the University
of Texas at San Antonio. Her edited and coedited works include Inside the
Latin@ Experience (2010, Palgrave Macmillan), Telling to Live: Latina
Feminist Testimonios (2001, Duke University Press), Chicana Traditions:
Continuity and Change (2000, The University of Illinois Press), and Dancing
Across Borders: Danzas y Bailes Mexicanos (2003, The University of Illinois
Press).
Books in the Series:

Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez


Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

RADICAL CHICANA POETICS
Copyright Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez, 2013.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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ISBN: 9781137343574
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vivancos Prez, Ricardo F., 1975
Radical Chicana Poetics / Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez.
pages cm.(Literatures of the Americas)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 9781137343574 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. American poetryMexican American authorsHistory and
criticism. 2. American poetryWomen authorsHistory and criticism.
3. Mexican American womenIntellectual life. 4. Feminism and
literatureUnited States. 5. Poetics. I. Title.
PS153.M4V58 2013
810.992870896872dc23 2013024522
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: August 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

A woman who writes has power. A woman who writes is feared.
In the eyes of the world this makes us dangerous beasts.
Gloria Anzalda, This Bridge Called My Back:
Writings by Radical Women of Color

Para Carmen Prez Ramrez, Mara Matilde Prez Prez,
Paloma Vivancos Prez, and Sarah Elizabeth Prez-Kriz
And to all women writers and atravesados who have felt as

dangerous beasts

Contents

List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Disclaimer, Captatio Malevolentiae, or Are Nos/otros
Ready to Move On? xiii
A Note about Language, Terminology, and Structure xxiii
Introduction
Fearing the Dangerous Beasts: Radical
Chicana Poetics 1
Part I Dangerous Bodies/Texts
Juncture
Polycentricity 23
Chapter 1
Gloria Anzaldas Poetics: The Process of
Writing Borderlands/La Frontera 29
Chapter 2
Cherre Moragas Theory-in-the-Flesh and the
Chicana Subject 51
Juncture
Collective Creativity 73
Part II (Re)Positionings
Juncture
Nepantlism 81

viii CONT ENT S
Chapter 3
The Nomadic Chicana Writer in Ana Castillo and
Emma Prez 87
Juncture
Antiacademicism 107
Chapter 4

Alicia Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana as Symbolic
Foremother 113
Part III Global Interventions
Juncture
Compostura 135
Chapter 5
Weaving Texts and Selves in Sandra Cisneross
Caramelo 139
Juncture
Transdisciplinarity 161
Chapter 6
The Jurez Murders, Chicana Poetics, and Human
Rights Discourse 165
Epilogue
The Coyolxauhqui Imperative and the Critic 181
Notes 187
Bibliography 201
Index 215

Illustrations

Figures
1.1 Las Four by Alma Lpez, 1997 (Digital mural) 47
J3.1 Nepantlera, by Celia Herrera Rodrguez. Drawings
from A Xicana Codex of Changing
Consciousness, 2011 83
6.1 Coyolxauhquis Tree of Life, by Alma Lpez, 2003 166
Tables
1.1 The Path of Conocimiento 34
1.2 Analysis of Poetry Collection 37
1.3 Analysis of Prose Section 41
6.1 Serial and Sexual Femicide in Ciudad
Jurez, 19932001 177
6.2 Femicide in Bolaos novel, 19931997 177
6.3 Reported Statistics 178
6.4 Ages in Bolaos 2666 178
6.5 Occupational Statistics 178

This page intentionally left blank

Acknowledgments

T he research and ideas in this book, as well as the writing, would
not have been possible without the generous help, advice, guidance,
and support of the following colleagues, friends, and relatives at dif-
ferent times during my travesa.
In Santa Barbara, California, Professors Don Luis Leal, Vctor
Fuentes, Francisco A. Lomel, and Sonia Lomel have been the great-
est mentors, role models, and sabios amigos. I could always rely on
them at any moment. And I still can, even on Don Luis from el ms
all.
At the University of California, Santa Barbara, Professors Timothy
McGovern, Sara Poot-Herrera, Mara Herrera-Sobek, Leo Cabranes
Grant, and Ellen McCracken provided invaluable help and intelligent
conversations. Tim McGovern, also from el ms all, continues to
help me survive and succeed in academia.
In the 1990s at the University of M laga, Professors Brbara
Ozieblo and Juan Antonio Perles Rochel initiated me in the study of
women authors, and instilled a passion for feminist theories.
In 2000, Professors Manuel M. Mart n Rodrguez and Virginia
Adn Lifante recruited me and helped me during my transition from
Spain to Texas. As nomadic scholars from Andaluca, they opened the
path. I followed through with admiration and tesn personal.
Over the years, many Chicana writers and artists have uncondition-
ally supported my work, and have been a continuous source of inspi-
ration: Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Deena Gonz lez, Norma E. Cant,
Cherre L. Moraga, Carmen Tafolla, Lourdes Portillo, Graciela
Limn, and Celia Herrera Rodrguez.
I am also very lucky to have Marjorie Agosn and Concha Alborg
both amazing writers, scholars, and activistsas mentors and true
friends. They have helped me establish a circle of trust that values the
many good sides of displacement.

xii ACK NOW LEDGMENT S
At George Mason University, I could not have survived without

my students, and without Professor Paula Gilberts mentorship and
her indelible passion for feminist thought and gender justice.
In southern California, I have always had the support of my amazing
family: Ginger Brody, Sharon Sveningson, Paul, and Karen Kriz; and
especially Peter Kriz, who is more than a father, and more than a
friend. He has been a role model as an authentic feminist man.

In Seattle, Professor Jens R. Chapman, MD, at the University of
Washington, and Dr. Susan Holiday; and in Fairfax, Virginia, Dr. Ann
OMalley helped me through difficult times with health issues that
challenged my research and writing.
Thanks to Brigitte Shull for her help and support at Palgrave
Macmillan, and especially to Norma Elia Cant, the editor of the
series Literature of the Americas, for believing in me with cario,
and enthusiastically endorsing my scholarship and my writing.
In memoriam: Timothy McGovern (19652006), Don Luis Leal
(19072010), and Ricardo Vivancos Sevilla (19502012).
* * *
This book is dedicated to Carmen Prez Ramrez, Mara Matilde

Prez Prez, Paloma Vivancos Prez, and Sarah Elizabeth Prez-Kriz,
the loves of my life. The four of them combine will, endurance, hon-
esty, and determination in different ways, and the four of them are my
biggest sources of strength through my diasporicity.
Entraables somos,
de la misma agua venimos,
la misma mujer nos crio
salada
fuerza que nos
confunde, gua y encoraza.

Disclaimer, Captatio Malevolentiae, or
Are Nos/otros Ready to Move On?

El poeta no pide benevolencia, sino atencin, una vez que ha saltado
hace mucho tiempo la barra espinosa de miedo que los autores tienen a
la sala.
The poet does not ask for benevolence, but for attention, once a long time
has passed since he jumped over the barbed wire of fear that authors have
of the audience.
Federico Garca Lorca, Prologue to
La zapatera prodigiosa
Radical Chicana Poetics is about the emergence of new subject posi-

tions under the category Chicana since the late 1970s to the present.
It is about how a group of Chicana feminists has been defining, both
theoretically and artistically, their new subject positions by recogniz-
ing their being perceived as dangerous beasts. In the process of doing
this, these writers have expanded the scope of the story Chicana in
multiple ways and with multiple approaches, but always highlighting
creativity, aesthetics, and imagination. At the core of their thought,
there is a metapoetic discourse about their own mission and method-
ology that includes theoretical reflections about their occupation as
writers, activists, and scholars.
So one cannot write a book about Chicana feminisms without
addressing ones own position since, as I will discuss from the begin-
ning to the end of this book, positionality is at the core of every dis-
cussion, every notion, every character, and every metaphor in Chicana
cultural production. This has always been a serious concern while
writing this book. Should I position myself? Should I avoid it, or just
ignore it? How can I avoid reflecting upon my own positionality in a
book in which positionality is an essential subject matter and shaping
component?

xiv DISCL AIMER
I have been going back and forth mulling over these questions dur-
ing my almost 15 years of research, writing, and teaching in the fields
of Chican@, Latin@, and Latin American studies. My senior male
mentors, whom I admire and to whom I am respectful and grateful,
have always advised me that I should not address my position in my
scholarly writing; whereas, my female mentors, and especially some
of the authors whose work I study in this book, have urged me to

explain from the beginning what my position is in order to recognize
my privileges and (dis)identifications. They have encouraged me to do
so as an exercise of honesty and commitment that truly portrays my
own process of transformation into an ally and a proxy. Only by doing
that would I be able to engage the reader, and to argue my ideas in the
most powerful way possible. Both subscribing to and separating from
traditional scholarship beliefs and classical tropes, this is what I am
doing in this captatio malevolentiae, asking for the readers attention,
and both his/her benevolence and malevolence, once I have gone over
the barbed wire of fear that, according to Federico Garca Lorca,
exists at the border between authors and audiences.
Self-reflection and self-critique, as well as a primary focus on artic-
ulating the specificity of ones oppression, are at the core of what I
examine in this book. In addressing my positionality, I am not simply
displaying an analogy between my approach and the methodologies
offered by radical Chicana artists, but rather the processes of trans-
formation that may habilitate my own as another voice that desires
to engage in the construction of a radical feminist poetics rooted in
Latinidades and Hispanidades. This is such a radical assertion coming
from the subject position of a scholar who initially does not appear to
belong to the social and cultural group or communities that he aspires
to preserve, voice, and represent. But isnt dangerous beasts poetics
essentially radical risk-taking in constructing new subject positions
that are initially preconceived as those of impossible monsters?
So Here I Go . . .
This is a book about women of colors feminist thought written by a
white man. It is a book about Chican@ culture written by a Spaniard.
It is a book about queer, lesbian cultural production written by an
ally, but nonetheless straight man, according to traditional nor-
malizing categorizations. Can I write this book? Do I have the right
to write this book? Who can speak about something as culturally spe-
cific and politically charged as radical Chicana poetics? Only radi-
cal Chicanas? Only those feminist-oriented Chicanos who share their

DISCL AIMER xv
political aspirations? Only those progressive women who share some

of their concerns and who participate in similar battles against oppres-
sion? These are questions I have been reflecting upon since I had the
arrebato rapture to engage in the study of Chicana and Latina
cultural production. The process of rumination starts over every time
I read a new text, or experience new artistic expressions. More food
for thought leads to more reformulation, and more accumulation to

more inclusion and expansion.
The exploration and construction of dangerous beasts poetics
involves a performative process of altering, discarding, adding, and
reshuffling that has no end, and in which looking for ends, definite
outcomes, or fixed truths should be a mistake. It goes through many
tensions, struggles, and states of psychic unrest that constantly
ameliorate what Gloria Anzalda calls the path of conocimiento,
but those are nonetheless necessary stages towards transformation in
a holistic, organic sense as activists, scholars, citizens, and persons.
Dangerous beasts poetics is a methodology of creative emancipation
rooted in the bodyradical and the imagination a poetics. The
writing process is one example or representation of the path of cono-
cimiento in its broadest sense of spiritual, holistic transformation.
Chicana feminist thought is, for the most part, about what Emma
Prez and others call writing Chicanas into history, and about
historicizing their cultural practices and political interventions. But
as Gloria Anzalda reminds us, a feminist philosophy that aims at
empowering border women is also about empowering atravesados or
border subjects in general, with border being understood as the
space occupied by the marginalized. Anzalda uses the term nos/
otras or nos/otros, playing with the word we in Spanish and
splitting it into us and others. For her, the word nosotros is a split
signifier nos/otros whose parts are constantly looking for each
othernos searching for otros, and otros searching for nos.
She even conceives the two as necessarily interchangeable.
Nos/otros, a notion that Anzalda was developing in her later
works, serves to explain some of the apparent contradictions that some
readers find in her seminal work Borderlands/La Frontera. Anzaldas
aggressive rejection of racists, machistas, homophobes, and xeno-
phobes does not mean excluding the possibilities for white Anglo
Americans, men, and/or heterosexuals to become allies, or to enter
the conversation about liberation and social justice. Furthermore,
Anzaldas ideas about inclusion are controversial for some members
of her own group, as shown for example by her disagreements with
Cherre Moraga, who refused to participate in the sequelThis Bridge

xvi DISCL AIMER
We Call Home (2002) to the anthologyThis Bridge Called My

Back (1981) after knowing that it would include pieces by men and
white women (see Juncture ).
In this regard, what Anzaldas concept of nos/otros shows
us is that one of the tenets for Chicana feminists tolerance for
contradictions has to operate on two main levels: both among
Chicanas, and among Chicanas and outsiders both within the

group and outside the group. This is a fundamental challenge for
scholars in Ethnic, Feminist, Queer, and Disability studies: overall,
for those of us who are constantly scrutinized and sometimes stigma-
tized as the school of resentment by some reactionary scholarship.
Anzalda reminds us to ask ourselves: Are we ready to face our own
internalized resentments? Are we ready to include the voices of oth-
ers in our discussions, or should we keep some venues, such as ethnic
and/or feminist anthologies, as safe spaces just for women, lesbians,
or ethnic groups? Are we ready to move on?
By asking us to change the we into nos/otros, Anzalda is
inviting us nos/otros both to recognize our internal split and to
include the voices of the others. In other words, by substituting nos/
otros for we, we can envision part of the answers to the questions
above in the articulation of the questions themselves: Are nos/otros
ready to address our own internalized resentments? Are nos/otros
ready to include the voices of others in our discussions, or should
nos/otros keep some venues, such as ethnic and/or feminist antholo-
gies, as safe spaces just for women, lesbians, or ethnic groups? Are
nos/otros ready to move on?
Nos/otros addresses, overall, the tensions involved in the pro-
cesses of democratization of Chican@ scholarship, and their reper-
cussions for Chicanas, border subjects, and their allies. Anzalda is
both encouraging and questioning, first, the use of the we by most
Chican@ scholars who strive to authenticate their voices as members
of the group as well as to legitimize their approaches; and second, the
right to speak about Chican@ culture by those who do not belong,
and who tend to obviate their own positionality in their writings.
Anzalda herself set up an example for border writers on how
to position oneself in her Preface to Borderlands/La Frontera. Her
gesture placing herself into the discourse by means of the I is
indicative of the consolidation of the story Chicana in writing and
scholarship over the years:
I am a border woman. I grew up between two cultures, the Mexican

(with a heavy Indian influence) and the Anglo (as a member of a

DISCL AIMER xvii
colonized people in our own territory). I have been straddling that

tejas -Mexican border, and others, all my life. Its not a comfortable ter-
ritory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploi-
tation are prominent features of this landscape.
...
This book, then, speaks of my existence. My preoccupations with
the inner life of the Self, and with the struggle of that Self amidst
adversity and violation; with the confluence of primordial images;

with the unique positionings consciousness takes at these confluent
streams; and with my almost instinctive urge to communicate, to
speak, to write about life on the borders, life in the shadows. (Anzalda
Borderlands n.p.)
Many Chican@s and border writers have followed Anzaldas

example as a valid vehicle for individual empowerment. However,
Anzalda is also pointing at the split between the real I and the
authorial I; that is, the presence of each individual voice within a
collective entity represented by the Is in the text.
In this book, I focus on the creation of this fictional and theoretical
Ithe I of the Chicana writer as the dangerous beast; and on
how radical Chicanas build their own poetics from this subject posi-
tion. The I of the Chicana writer is in fact both an I and a we.
The body of one the otherized, marginalized, ethnoracialized and
sexualized female body is also the body of the collective. Anzalda
and other Chicanas use the notion and the image of the Aztec god-
dess Coyolxauhqui to explain the dismembering and re-membering
of the body as a constant reformulation of the abstract entity called
Chicana, accounting for both the individual and the collective recon-
struction or what Norma Alarcn explains as identity-in-difference.
These notions shed light on the first contradiction pointed out
by the concept of nos/otros. But then we have its second level of
operation the one dealing with the voice of the other as part of the
collective other. In this regard, what interests me is the intermediate
position of the non-Chicano, male, and/or white scholar who decides
to engage in the study of Chicana cultural production.
I agree with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak when she says that the
minute we speak for others, we are both becoming a proxy and pro-
viding our own account of ourselves; that is, we manage to occupy an
intermediate outside-insider position. Political representation has two
sides that become inseparable at the discursive level: Representing :
proxy and portrait, as I said, there are two ways of representing. Now,
the thing to remember is that in the act of representing politically,
you actually represent yourself and your constituency in the portrait

xviii DISCL AIMER
sense, as well (Spivak, Postcolonial 108; emphasis in the original).

Renato Rosaldo and Deena Gonz lez have studied the position of the
Chican@ scholar as a participant-observer and an inside-outsider
(see Introduction), but there is a clear tendency to avoid and ignore
talking about the non-Chicano Chican@ studies scholar, whom I pre-
fer to call outside-insider.
In this book, I am occupying, theorizing, and advocating for my

own position as an outside-insider. I reclaim mine as a much-needed
perspective, but nonetheless just one more to complete a multidi-
mensional, tensional approach. During my writing process, I have
been tempted to use we to explain Chicana poetics many times.
This, I believe, has to do with my desire to empathize with the com-
munities that are the subject matter of my analyses, but it is also an
effect of radical Chicanas desire to consider my thoughts and my
story seriously. The nos and the otros attract each other just as the
dismembered body parts look for each other in the monstrous repre-
sentation of Coyolxauhqui. Can you disregard, then, my voice as part
of a feminist philosophy of nos/otros? Can you obviate desire and the
arrebatos involved in and provoked by dangerous beasts poetics?
Arrebatos
In her descriptions of the path of conocimiento, Anzalda includes
a series of calls to action or arrebatos. Anzalda defines those experi-
ences that ignite our desire for action instead of reaction. Arrebatos
mark our early stages of conocimiento or transformation. They agi-
tate us into action by compelling us to write our story anew.
I can remember many arrebatos that have called me to engage in
reading and writing about Chicana poetics over the years. Personally,
I have always felt as a kind of atravesado. I grew up at the border
between Spain and Morocco, in a working-class neighborhood of
Mlaga, a provincial town where tourism and African immigra-
tion were considered and still are by many a threat to traditional
conservative worldviews. I was born the year that the dictator died,
and have experienced the transition into democracy in different ways.
As far as the educational system and educational views in Spain are
concerned, I belong to a guinea-pig generation. They experimented
with us at home, in school, and in college. Growing up as a child
in the times of la movida sex, drugs, and rock and roll sexual
liberation and changing views about the family is something that I
appreciate now as enriching, but that I remember as confusing for me
as a kid. Additionally, having to deal with an abusive father, and being
raised by my mother in a feminocentric environment gave me a unique

DISCL AIMER xix
perspective into my multiple experiences of transition into democ-

racy, into new conceptions of the family, gender, sexuality, multicultur-
alism, and so on. No wonder that when I first read Gloria Anzaldas
Borderlands and Cherre Moragas plays, I had an arrebato!
Then I became an immigrant in the United States, where I have
suffered language discrimination many times, and many times I have
been treated as a pet, or animal de compaa, whenever I am around

Anglo Americans. This new dimension of my position as atravesado
got me even closer to dangerous beasts poetics. Being perceived as
the Spanish conquistador by Latinos, and as a Mexican with a
thick accent by Anglos, together with my background as a feminist-
oriented border subject have led me to be politically and culturally
engaged with Chicana feminist thought.
I especially remember those arrebatos that relate to my becoming
an outside-insider in Chican@ studies. My first advisor gave me the
first warning. He said something like: Are you sure you want to write
about Chicana feminists? Are you aware of your outsider position as
a Spaniard, and everything it implies? You really need to decide now,
before it is too late, whether you want to do this or something else.
This was not new, since I had already been experiencing the abnor-
mality of being a male researcher doing Feminist studies in Spain,
where the strongly patriarchal and disciplinary views in academia were
being contested by feminist scholars with separatist views that were
equally excluding men were not allowed in Women Studies organi-
zations, men could not get grants to do feminist research, and so on.
But now I was arriving into an almost unknown political arena for
me that of US academia. There was anxiety and la barra espinosa
de miedo.
A year later, when I was writing on Alicia Gaspar de Albas works, a
senior Chicano professor asked me: How are you going to convince
me that your work is worth reading? He was allegedly addressing
my writing style, but in fact he was referring to my right to speak for
Chicana lesbians. You are supposed to be the expert on Chicana les-
bian writing. You need to convince us that you are a reliable expert, a
real expert on this literature. But how could I claim to be an expert if
I did not belong? Reading Sor Juana Ins de la Cruzs works gave me
the clues. Her personal story allowed me to envision and articulate
my position as an expert or proxy.
Sor Filoteo
I realized that what I was experiencing while writing about Chicana
feminisms was a process of transformation that involved what one

xx DISCL AIMER
could call discursive transvestism. A crucial episode in Sor Juanas life

helps to explain this discursive strategy.
In Sor Juana Ins de la Cruzs most controversial work Carta
Atenagrica, the Novohispana nun criticized a sermon about Jesus
Christs finezas, or acts of love, published by Antonio de Vieira, an
influential Portuguese Jesuit of the times. Manuel Fernndez de Santa
Cruz, archbishop of Puebla, published Sor Juanas letter without her

permission in 1690. The text was dedicated to Sor Filotea de la Cruz,
and included a preface by Sor Filotea herself. In fact, Sor Filotea was
Fernndez de Santa Cruzs pseudonym. He used the letter as part of
his rivalry with another archbishop, Aguiar y Seijas. By publishing
Sor Juanas letter, Fernndez de Santa Cruz placed the nun against
Aguiar y Seijas, who was famous for his misogyny (Paz 51133).
This important event in Sor Juanas life, which is recreated in detail
by Gaspar de Alba in her novel Sor Juanas Second Dream (see chap-
ter 4), shows how discursive transvestism that is, adopting a gender
identity that is not yours within discourse may be used to perpetu-
ate and reinforce traditional patriarchal values. The episode made me
realize that I was practicing a discursive transvestism of a very dif-
ferent kind. I was questioning and defying traditional academic val-
ues that have seriously limited Literary and Cultural studies in many
ways. Writing about Chicana lesbians and homoeroticism was, and
is still problematic or weird for many if you are not Chicano, a
woman, or gay.
In my case, I became aware that I was taking on the position of the
feminist scholar and the Chicano scholar without being a Chicano, a
woman, or queer, but that I was not hiding my real identity. Rather,
I was asserting my right to speak, and the validity of my perspec-
tive from the outside. I was not Sor Filotea, but Sor Filoteo. I
was empowered by my position in academia and by my identity to
speak about and for others, but I wanted to recognize my position
as an outside-insider. But isnt Sor Filoteo an impossible, fictional
character?
Pioneer US Latinomericanist and Chican@ cultural critic Don
Luis Leal helped me with this question. When I first met him and
told him about my projects, he was very supportive and added a reve-
latory note of humor. With well-intended and optimistic honesty, he
pointed out how I was becoming un scholar lesbiano! I realized
that in my work, I am occupying the impossible position of les-
biano or Sor Filoteo. I am adopting feminist discourse to make it my
own, but at the same time I am constantly revealing the illusory qual-
ity of my positionality. In this way I am faithful to the perspective on

DISCL AIMER xxi
sexual and cultural identity that is present in the cultural production

I am analyzing in this book. My research inevitably includes a kind of
transvestism in a discursive and metaphorical sense.
Today, after ten years of expanding my research on Chicana poet-
ics, I can recall so many additional arrebatos in my process of transfor-
mation into Sor Filoteo. The arrebatos were not only professional as
an outside-insider in US academia but also personal as an immi-

grant-first-generation-college-student-Hispanic-feminist-oriented-
male-writer. It is through this ongoing process of transformation
that my theoretical I has emerged. I have overcome my initial fears,
but I recognize that my position as non-Chicano Chicano scholar,
displaced Spanish immigrant, and lesbiano in fact represents the
convergence of the fictional and the real. In a way, and following
the irresolvable discussions on the separation of fantasy and reality
in literature, I am situated in the blurred boundaries from which the
fantastic arises. My position as a scholar is an impossible one from a
normalizing realistic point of view. It is perceived as dangerous,
and it is in constant state of scrutiny. It is marked by anxiety. But
when I recognize the fictional constructedness of my position, I can
overcome some of the anxiety. In those moments of consciousness, I
am able to appreciate the works of the imagination and the mutually
enabling desire between nos and otros.
So this book is written from a position as a critic that may be
perceived as a fictional construction, or as a figuration or political
fiction, in the way that I use to explain the position of the danger-
ous beast (see Introduction). The process of explaining and analyzing
dangerous beasts poetics has shaped a figuration of my own subject
position as a dangerous beast. My captatio benevolentiae is also a cap-
tatio malevolentiae. By blurring the distinction between benevolence
and malevolence, I am just asking for nos/otros to pay attention to
imagination, and the processes of narrativization and a metaphoriza-
tion involved in what I call nos/otros scholarship.
FAIRFAX, VA-MLAGA,
SPAIN-SAN DIEGO, CA.
MayJuly 2012


A Note about Language, Terminology,
and Structure

F aithful to dangerous beasts poetics and my own voz fronteriza, I
do not italicize Spanish words in this book. Although English is the
primary tool for all who contribute to dangerous beasts poetics, code
switching flows in creative ways both at the textual and at the con-
ceptual levels in this book. Linguistic creativity is part of the aesthetic
dimension that shapes dangerous beasts poetics. It seems ridiculous
to me, then, not to use atravesados as border subjects, or expres-
sions such as pantheon of diosas, or the story Chicana if this is
how Chicanas express themselves. If there is a need for clarification,
I include my own translations. I use the words Chicana, Chicano,
Chicanas, and Chicanos as nouns that differentiate gender, or as adjec-
tives that agree in gender and number with nouns. I use Chican@
when the inclusion of all genders is necessary, especially with abstract
concepts Chican@ culture, Chican@ literature, and so on. With
regard to Chican@ studies, I use the @ deliberately to recognize the
paradigmatic shift brought about by gender and sexuality, and postna-
tional approaches in the field. The same applies to the term Latin@.
Structural Note
Inspired by Chicana visual representations of the Aztec goddess
Coyolxauhqui, and especially by Anzaldas use of the goddess and
the body/text trope as a way to explain the writing process, this book
is structured in chapters and junctures. Chapters focus on authors
and central themes, myths, and metaphors in specific works. In
between the body parts that are the chapters, Junctures are mini-
essays that operate as connecting tissue. They include digressions on
essential concepts that may have been denied, overlooked, or under-
studied by cultural critics. Junctures elaborate on peripheral ele-
ments that are, nonetheless, crucial to connect the body parts of

xxiv L A N G UAG E , T E R M I N O L O GY, A N D S T R U C T U R E
Chicana poetics. In this sense, these miniessays resemble the orna-

ments that Aztecs carved at the junctures of the dismembered body
parts of Coyolxauhqui in the Coyolxauhqui stone disk found at the
Aztec Templo Mayor in Mxico City. These ornaments represent sym-
bols that are at the core of Aztec cosmology and that are essential to
understand the goddesss identity, emphasizing her sacrificial func-
tion in the wars between opposite natural forces. The six miniessays

on polycentricity, collective creativity, nepantlism, antiacademicism,
compostura, and transdisciplinarity are numbered with dots, fol-
lowing the Aztec number system.

Introduction
Fearing the Dangerous Beasts:

I n this book, radical Chicana poetics is defined as dangerous beasts

poetics. The use of dangerous beasts is taken from the anthol-
ogy This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color,
coedited by Chicana feminists Cherre Moraga and Gloria Anzalda
in 1981. They divided the collection into six major areas of concern
for Third World women in the U.S.:
(1) how visibility/invisibility as women of color forms our radicalism;

(2) the ways in which Third World women derive a feminist political
theory specifically from our racial/cultural background and experience;
(3) the destructive and demoralizing effects of racism in the womens
movement; (4) the cultural class, and sexuality differences that divide
women of color; (5) Third World womens writing as a tool for pres-
ervation and revolution; and (6) the ways and means of a Third World
feminist future. (This Bridge liii)
Moraga was in charge of the thematic organization of the book.

She also wrote brief explanatory introductions to the first four sec-
tions, while Anzalda sketched the rest. For the fifth section, entitled
Speaking in Tongues: The Third World Woman Writer, Anzalda
wrote: A woman who writes has power. A woman who writes is feared.
In the eyes of the world this makes us dangerous beasts (This Bridge
182, emphasis in the original).
Anzaldas statement marked a symbolic moment of collective self-
recognition for women writers of colora time in which they confront
their being perceived as beasts, as dangerous, dark monsters: that is,
the moment of recognition of their being profiled as ethnoracialized

2 RADICAL CHICANA P OE T ICS
and sexualized women writers. Anzalda asserted that the audacity of

writing and being a writer should give US Third World women power,
but being writers might also stigmatize them even more. However, she
insisted that women writers of color should take on both aspectsthe
act and the occupationas tools for visibility and empowerment. This
book considers this moment of conscious awarenesswomen writ-
ers of colors recognition and invocation of themselves as dangerous

beastsas a point of entry into contemporary Chicana poetics.
Since the 1980s to the present, This Bridge has become an essential
tool for Chicanas and women of color, and a catalyst for commu-
nity building and social change. In Chicana feminism the strategic
invocation and recodification of the native woman (252), and the
mark of the beast within her become central issues in the 1990s, as
explained by Norma Alarcn in her thoughts on the occasion of the
quincentenary of the arrival of Columbus in the Americas:
The most relevant point in the present [for Chicana feminists] is to

understand how a pivotal indigenous portion of the mestiza past may
represent a collective female experience as well as the mark of the
Beast within usthe maligned and abused indigenous woman. By
invoking the dark Beast within and without, which many have forced
us to deny, the cultural and psychic dismemberment that is linked to
imperialist racist and sexist practices are brought into focus. (Alarcn,
Chicana Feminism 251)
In this book, I explore the appropriation and reshaping of the

dangerous beast as invoked by Anzalda in This Bridge. Following
her definition, the mark of the beast not only stigmatizes women of
color as Native Women but also stigmatizes them as women writers,
artists, and intellectuals.
As a powerful socio-symbolic gesture, This Bridge was born in a spe-
cific context. After two years of experiencing elitist and racist practices
that tokenized women of color inside the Womens Writers Guild in
San Francisco, Anzalda and Moraga decided in 1979 to leave the
group and issued a call for papers for an anthology of women writers
of color. The recognition of the dangerous beast emerged as a reac-
tion of U.S. Third World women against Anglo American feminists.
As editors, they occupied this political positionthat of feminists of
colorwhen they conceived This Bridge. However, following one of
the main tenets in the anthologyto address the specificity of ones
oppressionAnzalda and Moraga also launched a paradigmatic shift
in the conceptualization of Chicano identity and the Chicana subject.

INT RODUCT ION 3
This shift shaped their later writings, and influenced in multiple ways
Chicana and Latina artists, scholars, activists, and educators.
By conceiving the dangerous beast as a semblance of the Chicana
writing subject, this book examines how a group of radical writ-
ers has constructed the conceptual position of the Chicana feminist
intellectual, and how this position consolidates itself in contempo-
rary Chicana cultural production. The conceptualization of Chicana

writers as dangerous beasts has to do with the development of figu-
rations and theories. With figurations I mean transgressive politi-
cal fictions, following feminist cultural critic and philosopher Rosi
Braidotti. Since her earlier works in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
Braidotti argues that feminist thinkers need to formulate figurations,
a style of thought that evokes or expresses ways out of the phallocen-
tric vision of the subject. A figuration is a politically informed account
of an alternative subjectivity (Nomadic Subjects 1). Having in mind
Monique Wittigs lesbian, Teresa de Lauretiss eccentric subject,
or Donna Haraways cyborg, Braidottis project is to theorize her
own figurationthe feminist as nomad:
The nomadic subject is a myth, that is to say a political fiction that allows
me to think through and move across established categories and levels
of experience: blurring boundaries without burning bridges. Implicit in
my choice is the belief in the potency and relevance of the imagination,
of myth-making, as a way to step out of the political and intellectual
stasis of the postmodern times. Political fictions may be more effective,
here and now, than theoretical systems. (Nomadic Subjects 4)
In her academic writings, Braidotti is in fact addressing her own

subject position. Her own personal and intellectual itinerary shapes
her figuration of the feminist as nomad. In other words, she is her-
self a semblance of the nomadic subject that she theorizes. Braidotti
was born in Italy and raised in Australia, obtained her PhD from the
Sorbonne, and is currently a Distinguished University Professor at
Utrecht University in the Netherlands. Her nomadism is, accordingly,
polyglot and transdisciplinary.
The dialogue between Braidotti and Chicana feminist thought
is pertinent for several reasons. First, Braidotti proposes to rethink
the bodily roots of subjectivity as the starting point of her femi-
nism in a way that is similar to Chicanas focus on the specificity of
their oppression; that is, an exploration of embodiment and sexual
difference starting from their own experience. Second, they both
focus on (sexual) difference in an optimistic way: that is, focusing

on its liberatory potentialities. Third, they both understand identity

formations as processes of becoming, emphasizing itinerancy and
performativity.
The notion of becoming is important. In Braidotti, it comes
from Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari, and a tradition of thought
that does not (want to) align with political positions, that relies on
abstractions, and that tends to disregard memory and historical mate-

rialism. Chicanas, on the contrary, explicitly reject an understanding
of subjectivity and desire that ignores memory and history, and situ-
ate themselves closer to postcolonial thought, and critical race theory.
Unfortunately, Braidotti is not interested in Chicana thought, and
does not examine theories by feminists of color extensively. However,
it is fascinating to observe and explore how Chicana feminist writings
and Braidottis feminist nomadism have emerged and evolved simulta-
neously and side-by-side from different locations since the late 1980s
to the present.
So this book uses the concept of feminist figuration, in relation to
what I call dangerous beasts feminism, understood as a differen-
tial poeticsbased on a positive view of differencefollowing Chela
Sandovals theories of differential consciousness. Along the way,
the dialogue that I propose between Braidottis theories and Chicana
feminisms reveals a need for global connections among contemporary
feminist trends that move beyond traditional dichotomous under-
standings such as Continental versus US feminisms, white versus color
feminisms, and so on.
The invocation of the dangerous beast in This Bridge not only
marks the emergence of Chicana theoretical I but also launches a
proliferation of fictional figurations of the Chicana intellectual. In this
book, I argue that these figurations need to be approached in relation
to and as inseparable from theories about writing and the act of writ-
ing formulated by Chicanas since the 1970s.
I analyze texts written by well-known figures in Chicana/Latina
studiesGloria Anzalda, Cherre Moraga, Ana Castillo, Emma
Prez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Sandra Cisneros. Although they
are by no means the only ones, these Chicana authors have more
clearly followed the path of the dangerous beast in the sense that I
conceive it. They have more actively engaged in both the exploration
of new figurations of the Chicana writing subject, and the devel-
opment of thought and theories. They have done this in different
creative ways, from their own individual vantage points, but they
have all focused on gender, sexuality, and the body as points of entry
into a continuous reinvention of history and myth, both politically

INT RODUCT ION 5
and aesthetically. All of them have also traversed across outsider and
insider positions as writers, scholars, activists, and educators. One of
my main arguments, however, is that the emphasis on gender, sexual-
ity, and the bodyaspects that have already been largely addressed by
scholars over the yearsis, in these authors, inextricably linked to an
awareness of their condition as writing subjectsof dangerous beasts
who are both empowered and feared, by both themselves and others.

In addition to their emphasis on gender and sexuality, there is a focus
on writing as a way to construct identity, as well as an urgent con-
cern about their continuous positioning and repositioning as Chicana
intellectuals.
By zooming in on each of these Chicana feminist writers, an essen-
tial question is how this new paradigmdangerous beasts poetics
evolves and shapes up as a collective intervention. What I am doing is
not tracing an evolution or progressive development, but a contingent
act of mapmaking, a cartography in the sense that Braidotti con-
ceives her own theorizing process: A sort of intellectual landscape
gardening that gives me a horizon, a frame of reference within which I
can take my bearing, move about, and set up my own theoretical tent
(Nomadic Subjects 16). For Braidotti, each text is like a camping site:
it traces places where I have been (17). The image is useful to enter
the analysis of the texts and theories of the radical Chicana writers
that I study in this book. But rather than seeing their cartographies
in isolation, I argue that radical Chicanas conceive their writings as
a collective map-making endeavor in which complexities, contradic-
tions, and tensions are necessary components of a continuum. For
that reason, the cartography that this book intends to offer is just one
possible way of giving a horizon for readers to set up their own
tents in approaching Chicana feminist thought.
The Prefix Post- in Chicana/o Studies

Radical Chicana Poetics participates in a revisionist tendency that
characterizes current Chicana/o cultural criticism. In taking inven-
tory of the development of Chicana/o thought, critics generally agree
that after the 1980sa decade of experimentation and exhaustion of
previous paradigmsthe 1990s are marked by a turn that is post
something: post-Movement, postpolitical or postnational
(Avila; Garca, Chicana Feminist Thought; Gutirrez, Chicano
History; Hernndez, Postnationalism; Ortega; Saldvar, Trans-
Americanity). Since the 1990s, Chicano scholarship emphasizes a new
stage in the discipline that goes beyond the political or the national

even though the ideological legacy of the Chicano Movementan

ethnic and nationalist movement that emerged during the fight for
the civil rights of Mexican Americans in the 1960s and 1970sis
still alive, inspiring and motivating social practices and cultural pro-
duction. Although some of the initial political and educational goals
have been accomplished and overcome, social protest continues to
be a fundamental pillar at the very foundation of Chican@ stud-

ies. In this regard, scholars are constantly exploring how the initial
ethnonationalistic impulse has evolved, and what the prefix post
means in Chican@ studies from the 1980s to the present. Historian
Ramn Gutierrez has used the term postmodernwhich would
imply the existence of Chicano modernismswhile Alma Garca,
tracing the development of Chicana feminist thought, challenged
many of the veteranos of the Movement by using Post-Movement
in the late 1990s. More recently, Jos David Saldvar reflects upon
incorporating transnational, antinational, and outernational
into Chican@ and US Latin@ studies, arguing for a trans-American
(even planetary) conceptualization of Americanity (Saldvar Trans-
Americanity 17).
I align with recent scholarship that explores the term postnation-
alism not only in the wake of new trends in social science research
and cultural theory (Habermas; Sassen) but also considering Gender
and Sexuality studies. Reflecting upon ways to approach Chican@
transnational cultures, Ellie Hernndez claims that Chicana feminists
discussions about gender and sexuality are at the core of the shift to
the postnational:
Chicana/o cultural nationalism began to change in the early

1980s . . . and Chicana/o discourse gained from its engagement with a
discussion about gender and sexuality because this engagement stimu-
lated a larger and more heterogeneous arrangement of class, identity,
and nation. (Hernndez, Postnationalism 3)
In literature the focus on gender and sexuality is associated with

the so-called Chicana/Latina publication boom in or near 1985
(Lomel, Mrquez, and Herrera-Sobek 290).1 The importance of
this boom was already being perceived at the time by feminist liter-
ary critics,2 but it is only today that we can better appreciate how the
effervescence of the 1980sits transitional and experimental qual-
itieswas propelled for the most part by a strong feminist coalitional
impulsethe one exemplified by This Bridge. One can also observe
today how drastic the consequences were for Chicana/o studies. By the

INT RODUCT ION 7
end of the decade, cultural criticism veered toward more sophisticated

approaches that were truly interdisciplinary, more heterogeneous,
more self-reflective, and, overall, more progressive and inclusive. This
democratization of Chicana/o studies has been shaped by its expan-
sion toward other critical standpoints from several academic fields,
including Cultural studies, and Border studies, but the coming into
play of feminist and queer theories needs to be highlighted because of

the insistence on expanding visions on identity, and on being aware
of positionality.
In this book, the prefix Post- in Post-Movement, postpoliti-
cal, or postnational does not refer to the exclusion of the opposi-
tional political aspect inherent to the concept Chicano. I want to
offer an investigation on how a process of expansive accumulation
and integration has opened up Chican@ studies to multiple transdisci-
plinary avenues and critical (re)positionings. In this sense, I basically
agree with Hernndez when she contends that, in Chican@ studies,
the move toward postnationalism appears as a discontinuous or frag-
mented part of an earlier cultural nationalism, in both political and
aesthetic offerings (Hernndez Postnationalism 9). However, I argue
that exploring gender and sexuality in Chicana cultural production is
one significant factor that, if we follow the very theories of radical
Chicanas, also needs to be considered in relation to a constant work-
ing out of positioning and repositioning both by artists and by us as
audience members and critics. The processes of becoming Chicana
in radical Chicana writings are essentially intellectual, imaginative, and
artistic; gender and sexuality are at the core of these processes, but
they are inextricably linked to an expansion of the understanding of
identity that is beyond an interest solely in the intersectionality of
group identity markers.
Before giving a general overview, I would like to present the reader
with some context, and some additional notions that will be recurrent
throughout my analyses. First, I explain how I conceive the expan-
sion of the understanding of identity that Chicana writers are pro-
moting since the early 1980s. To illustrate my view on the shift to
postnationalism in Chican@ studies, I reflect upon two texts represen-
tative of two critical moments: Rodolfo Corky Gonzaless poem I
am Joaqun (1967), and Gloria Anzaldas Borderlands/La Frontera
(1987). Second, I address the question of positionality in relation to
the emergence of the feminist theoretical subject in Chicana writing.
Both aspectsidentity as Chicana writers and positionalityclarify, I
believe, how I conceive the polycentric figurations of the dangerous
beast as political fictions that each author creates through characters,

narrative voices, and metaphors that work simultaneously to the shap-

ing of their own theoretical Is or conceptual writing subjects.
From Chicano Identity to Chican@ Identity

In the opening pages of Borderlands/La Frontera, Anzalda calls the
inhabitants of the borderlands los atravesados, defined as those

who cross over, pass over or go through the confines of the normal
(Borderlands 25). Following up on basic tenets that were sketched
out in This Bridgethat is, a focus on the specificity of one owns
oppression that I mentioned aboveAnzalda takes as the prime
point of departure her preoccupations with the inner life of the
self, and with the struggle of that self amidst adversity and violation
(Borderlands n.p.). In the initial creative essay, the female narrat-
ing I not only identifies herself as one of the atravesados, but also
becomes their spokesperson. Her specific location as a marginalized
figure becomes the starting point for a revisionist symbolic journey
that explores her cultural heritage, and rewrites history and myth.
The semblance of the dangerous beast in Borderlands/La Frontera
includes the Chicana, the fronteriza, and the queer/patlache aspects
of Anzaldas own positioning. Both the narrating I in the essay
and the poetic persona of the poems stand out against the sexist and
homophobic aspects of the Chicano subject that emerged in the early
stages of the Movement.
Borderlands may be easily read as a response to Rodolfo Corky
Gonzaless I am Joaqun (1967), a foundational literary text of the
Chicano Movement. Popularized and described as An Epic of the
Mexican American People in its most widely distributed edition
by Bantam Books in 1972, Gonzaless poem is, as Borderlands/La
Frontera, a journey back into history, a painful self-evaluation, a
wandering search for my people and most of all for my own identity
(Gonzales 1).3 The critical moments exemplified by these two texts
represent two different conceptions of identity that are neither sim-
plistic nor in total opposition to each other. They deserve attention
as being indicative of the ongoing dynamic reformulation of Chican@
identity that is at the core of Chicana/o cultural production.
According to Kwame Anthony Appiah, to adopt an identity is to
see it as structuring my way through life (Appiah 24). He explains
how, in contemporary thought, identities have been approached in
two ways: (1) as referring to kinds of persons, that is, focusing on
the occupation or profession that the person identifies with;4 and
(2) in terms of identity markersan approach to identity based on the

INT RODUCT ION 9
social construction of the subject that pays attention to the collective

dimension of identities.5
Both I am Joaqun and Borderlands/La Frontera deal with identity
following Appiahs second approach. In this sense, both texts consider
group autonomy as an ideal (Appiah 71). However, while Gonzales
puts emphasis on race and class, Anzalda prefers to start by decon-
structing gender and sexuality, insisting on the intersection of race

and class with gender and sexuality. Moreover, Gonzaless focus is on
the collective ideal, while Anzaldas is on the individual self.
Gonzaless poetic persona Joaqun dissolves Chicano subjectivi-
ties into one common collective identity. The poem leaves out the
consideration of individual differences and claims for a transcenden-
tal Chicano identity. Nevertheless, Joaquns Chicano identity is not
strictly monolithic, but supports the erasure of internal differences
for the sake of the common causa. By using the labels that describe
people of Mexican descent in different regions of the United States.
Mexican, Hispanic, Latino, and Chicanothe poem tries to group
together different individuals under the same cultural heritage, eth-
nicity, language, and social (working) class versus being absorbed
by US dominant culture:
whatever I call myself,

I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
and
sing the same
I am the masses of my people and
I refuse to be absorbed. (Gonzales 989)
The construction of Chicano identity in the initial years of the

Movement exemplified by I Am Joaqun has to be read in the context
of the civil rights movements. The effort was to group together an
ethnic community whose voice had been denied historically by raising
consciousness and fostering a sense of pride and resistance. This vision
of identity was present in many scholarly publications.
Tino Villanueva, in a study written in the mid-1970s, summa-
rized the meaning of Chicano. At the time, the term Chicano
emphasized race, ethnicity, and class, claiming for a nationality not
sponsored by any nation-state. It emerged as a political and cultural
categoryun trmino ideolgico de solidaridad that defined an
identity. Chicano defined an identity that was initially conceived as
common and collective in order to devolver al individuo concreto

la conciencia entera de la dignidad personal (Villanueva 11). This

ethnonationalistic approach emphasized collectivity, taking it as a
point of departure in the construction of identity, and therefore sac-
rificing internal individual differences among Chicanas and Chicanos,
as well as among Hispanics.
In this initial formulation of identity, Chicano was monolithic in
a patriarchal sense. The traditional construction of gender and sexu-

ality was not discussed. The discourse in I Am Joaqun reinforced the
idea of Chicano identity as (hetero)sexist, arrogant with pride, /
bold with machismo (64). Gonzaless poem encouraged Chicanos
to develop a common consciousness characterized by arrogance and
courage. The poem promoted a traditional view of the chauvinis-
tic Mexican male as the role model, in order to reinforce Chicano
social protest. The figuration or conceptual persona constructed as
Joaqun in the poem reclaims a male leading I for the Chicano
Movement, bold with machismo. Furthermore, while the poetic
persona Joaqun identifies himself with other male Mexican cul-
tural icons coming from the times of the ConquestCuauhtmoc,
Netzahualcyotl, Montezuma, Hernn Cortsor more recent
historyBenito Jurez, Pancho Villa, or Emiliano Zapataonly
the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Aztec goddess Tonantzin are men-
tioned just to underscore Chicanas as passive and suffering women
(Gonzales 42).
The illustration accompanying this stanza in the Bantam popular
edition is especially revealing. Entitled The Death of Zapata, a paint-
ing by Luis Arenal, it shows a hooded woman mourning the dead
body of Emiliano Zapata in its coffin.6 Later on, the image of the
black-shawled Chicana/Mexicana appears again in the illustration
that goes along with the following lines of the poem:
I am in the eyes of woman,

sheltered beneath
her shawl of black,
deep and sorrowful eyes,
that bear the pain of sons long buried
or dying,
dead
on the battlefield or on the barbed wire
of social strife. (Gonzales 77)7
In contrast with Gonzaless text, Anzalda recovers and reinvents

female myths and cultural icons from a feminist perspective. Inspired
by archetypal psychology (see Juncture ), she conceives Chicana

INT RODUCT ION 11
as a polycentric subject position that encapsulates a multiplicity of

female figures. Anzaldas narrating I in Borderlands opposes the
discourse of the poetic persona in I am Joaqun more clearly in pas-
sages where she broadens the scope of the images of the border used
by Gonzales in order to expose the double marginalization of women
in the borderlands:

La mojada, la mujer indocumentada, is doubly threatened in this coun-
try. Not only does she have to contend with sexual violence, but like all
women, she is prey to a sense of physical helplessness. As a refugee, she
leaves the familiar and safe homeground to venture into the unknown
and possibly dangerous terrain.
This is her home
This thin edge of barbwire. (Borderlands 345)
In I am Joaqun, the barbed wire of social strife is a metaphor

that addresses class struggle, while in Anzaldas text the thin edge
of barbwire becomes part of the images that construct the undocu-
mented womans liminal location in her more complex geopolitical
and psychosexual borderlands.
The undocumented woman here is one of the representations of
the atravesados. Their particular location provides them, according to
Anzalda, with a special faculty, or the capacity to see in surface
phenomena the meaning of deeper realities (60). This Facultad,
defined throughout the book as a survival tactic or psychological
skill that is a result of oppression may help to develop what she calls
the New Mestiza consciousness of the otherized within the bor-
derlands. The New Mestiza is not a concrete character or representa-
tion, but a new figuration or conceptual persona that accounts for the
identity of all marginalized border subjects. As a spokesperson, the
writing subject in Anzaldas text emerges as a particular semblance
of the dangerous beast both as a response to the categories Chicana
and Chicano of the Chicano Movement, and as a radical critique of
the category Woman of Anglo American feminism, a task that she
had already initiated in This Bridge.
In relation to Appiahs frame, the (re)construction of identity in
Borderlands implies (1) an expansion of an approach to identity in
terms of identity markers, and (2) the inclusion of a second approach
to identities as kinds of people. First, Anzalda not only takes gen-
der and sexuality as the prime point of departure, but also recognizes
the diversity that the intersection of other identity markers implies
the social, racial, religious, and linguistic diversity of members of the
Chican@ ethnic group. Second, the theoretical Is desire to theorize

also includes the approach to identities as kinds of persons pointed

out by Appiah, paying attention to the role of the Chicanas as artists
and theorists. In this regard, Anzaldas theoretical I emerges as a
figuration of the Chicana. It addresses Chican@ culture by consider-
ing a new kind of person: the Chicana intellectual who theorizes
about the New Mestiza Way, and who is at the same time a repre-
sentation of this New Mestiza herself. In this way, Borderlands sets up

Anzaldas particular figuration of the Chicana writing subject as a
dangerous beast, as well as her own dangerous beasts poetics.
The Feminist Theoretical I and Positionality

In my exploration of Chicana as a polycentric subject position, I
draw on Norma Alarcns notion of identities-in-difference as espe-
cially useful for recognizing internal diversity in contemporary Chicana
poetics. Most importantly, I elaborate on her studies about the theo-
retical subject of feminism since her earliest essay on the matter, pub-
lished in 1990. According to Alarcn, the theoretical subject in This
Bridge is characterized by its complexity and its irreducible multiple
nature. It emerged from recognizing difference within women of
colors groups and organizations (Theoretical Subject[s] 365). This
theoretical subject is highly complex because it is constructed in
a crisis of meaning situation which includes racial and cultural divi-
sions and conflicts (359). It emerges, according to Alarcn, from an
ongoing process of struggle, effort and tension (365).
Alarcns studies on the theoretical subject of Chicana feminism
complement and expand other approaches that focus on the hybrid
nature of Chican@ texts. According to Alfred Arteaga in his classic
1997 book, the subject of Chicano poetics is hybrid, and comes
around through the interplay of different social texts, analogously,
through heterotextual reproduction. The physical body is born and
reproduces, and analogously, the cultural subject has genesis and
reproduction (25, emphasis in the original). In the construction of
the ethnoracialized and sexualized female subject in radical Chicana
poetics, I argue that this heterotextual reproduction needs to be
approached also in terms of the individuals preoccupation about her
own political location. The crisis of meaning situation pointed out
by Alarcn has to do with an awareness and continuous negotiating of
ones own political and cultural positioning.
Let me return to Anzaldas text for clarification. In Chapter 6
of Borderlands, entitled Tlilli, Tlapalli/The Path of the Red and
Black Ink, the narrating I defines writing as a process that involves

INT RODUCT ION 13
pleasure and suffering, connecting with the state of psychic unrest

experienced by the inhabitants of the borderlands (95). The writing
process is intrinsic to the condition of atravesados and their own way
of constructing identity:
I write the myths in me, the myths I am, the myths I want to become.
The word, the image and the feeling have a palpable energy, a kind of

power. Con imgenes domo mi miedo, cruzo los abismos que tengo por
dentro. Con palabras me hago piedra, pjaro, puente de serpientes arrast-
rando a ras del suelo todo lo que soy, todo lo que algn da ser. (93)
The theoretical I in Borderlands is doing theory. It is hetero-

geneous and hybrid in Arteagas sense. However, the heterotex-
tual reproduction is orchestrated by a narrating IAnzaldas
figuration of the dangerous beastwho constantly addresses its posi-
tionality and tries to control its fears with imagescon imgenes
domo mi miedoand wordscon palabras me hago piedra, pjaro,
puente.
In Borderlands, the self-reflective or metacritical element is clear
in the section called El camino de la mestiza / The Mestiza Way,
which describes how, in writing about her own identity, the Chicana
I proceeds segn la concepcin que se tiene de s misma, in order
to learn to transform the small I into the total Self. This section
is central to Anzaldas elaboration of her particular dangerous beasts
poetics. Although I will analyze it in depth in chapter 1, it is worth
quoting here:
Her first step is to take inventory. Despojando, desgranando, quitando

paja. Just what did she inherit from her ancestors? This weight on her
backwhich is the baggage from the Indian mother, which the bag-
gage from the Spanish father, which the baggage from the Anglo?
Pero es difcil differentiating between lo heredado, lo adquirido, lo
impuesto. She puts history through a sieve, winnows out the lies, looks
at the forces that we as a race, as women, have been a part of. Luego
bota todo lo que no vale, los desmientos, los desencuentros, el embruteci-
miento. Aguarda el juicio hondo y enraizado, de la gente antigua. This
step is a conscious rupture with all oppressive traditions of all cultures
and religions. She communicates that rupture, documents the strug-
gle. She reinterprets history and, using new symbols, she shapes new
myths. She adopts new perspectives toward the darkskinned, women
and queers. She strengthens her tolerance (and intolerance) for ambigu-
ity. She is willing to share, to make herself vulnerable to foreign ways of
seeing and thinking. She surrenders all notions of safety, of the familiar.
Deconstruct, construct. She becomes a nahual, able to transform herself

into a tree, a coyote, into another person. She learns to transform the
small I into the total Self. Se hace moldeadora de su alma. Segn la
concepcin que tiene de s misma, as ser. (Borderlands 1045)
In 1987, Anzaldas metapoetic search for a method represents a

paradigmatic shift in the debates that were occurring since the birth of
Chicano studies. These debates deal with the role of the critic in the

discipline and involve a basic question: How can we study Chican@
cultural production? As an essential part of establishing their own
discipline and their own space in the US education system, one of
the main objectives of Chicano critics was to study Chican@ cultural
manifestations in their own context and on their own terms. This
basic tenet, which was already pointed out in 1977 by literary crit-
ics Francisco Lomel and Donaldo Urioste in a special issue of De
Colores dedicated to the analysis of Chicano literature (Editorial
4), is recuperated and theorized in the late 1980s by cultural critic
Renato Rosaldo in Culture and Truth: The Remaking of Social
Analysis (1989).
The Chican@ Studies Scholar as

Inside-Outsider or Outside-Insider
Rosaldo redefined the role of the ethnographer and the way in
which social analysis may be conducted not only from his position
as a scholar but, most crucially, from his experience as a Chicano in
outsider situations. It is his occupation, then, what makes him real-
ize that a processual perspective is the most adequate to approach
the unpredictability of social relations within communities composed
by multiple personal identities (Rosaldo 166). The best position
to take in analyzing social and ethnic groups is, according to him,
that of participant-observer (180). The Chican@ critic is and has to
remain in an intermediate position of struggle and negotiation across
traditional disciplines in order to achieve a mobile, hybrid perspective
adequate for the subject matter of study. According to Rosaldo, the
key characteristic of the Chican@ critic is being a positioned (and
repositioned) subject (7), whose mobility is expressed in the self-
referentiality of her/his discourse.
Rosaldos influential notions about positionality in the late 1980s
reinforce conceptualizations that were already being developed by
feminists of color during that decade as a result of recognizing their
outsider-insider positions. Patricia Hill Collins used the term outsider
within in 1986 to refer to the social location of working-class black

INT RODUCT ION 15
American women and their experiences of economic exploitation. She

pointed out how, as domestic workers, black women developed female
forms of resistance by creating strong ties with the children and families
they worked for, being aware, however, that they remained outsiders.
Collins defined their outsider-within social location as a peculiar
marginality that stimulated a distinctive black womens perspective on
a variety of themes (Collins, Learning 14). Later on, in her influen-

tial Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics
of Empowerment (1990), she extends the concept to describe the posi-
tion of black women intellectuals, by explaining how their marginal
location as cultural critics and thinkers can foster new angles of vision
on oppression (Black 11).
Chicana feminists are interested in theorizing their position as out-
siders within the US society in similar ways. Chicana feminist histo-
rian Deena Gonzlez, for example, highlights her specific position as
inside-outsider as potentially productive site of accountability based
primarily on personal experience:
Outside-insiders have . . . special relationships with their topicswe

know we cannot know many things, but we also know that much of
what we do know we can explain primarily as feelings or as images;
evidence serves as verification of these expressions . . . Outside-insiders
such as myself . . . have elided scientific methodology (insofar as that is
possible in a First World society) and rely heavily on participant-obser-
vation from critical vantage points. (Cit. in Gaspar de Alba, Chicano
Art 25)
Gonzlezs conceptualization includes, on the one hand, the kind

of processual self-reflective attitude defended by Rosaldo, who thinks
about the role of ethnographers when they study social groups that
are not their own; on the other, she shares Collinss activism and her
empathic attitude toward women of colors specific experiences of
oppression, taking into account the intersection of class, gender, and
sexuality issues.
The awareness of being a participant-observer constitutes an essential
feature underneath every figuration of the dangerous beast analyzed in
this book. With regard to terminology, I prefer to use inside-outsider
to refer to those who occupy a marginal position within Chican@ com-
munities, that is, Chicana lesbians; and outside-insiders for the posi-
tion of the ally or the proxy, that is, non-Chicano scholar. As I argue
in the Disclaimer, the dangerous beast position of psychic unrest
in transitional statethat of nepantla (see Juncture )invites the

outside-insider to be part of the shaping of dangerous beasts poetics,

allowing for her possible transformation.
Radical Chicana Poetics: An Overview

As mentioned in the structural note, Radical Chicana Poetics is struc-
tured in chapters and junctures, following the trope of the dismem-

bered body of Coyolxauhqui. Overall, this structure reflects how
radical Chicanas envision themselves as dangerous beasts. They con-
tinually recreate Chicana as a polycentric subject position that is
represented by multiple figurations. These figurations originate in
what Alarcn describes as an ongoing process of struggle, effort and
tension (Alarcn Theoretical Subject[s] 365).
In this Introduction, I have already explored how Anzalda con-
ceives some of her figurations. In chapter 1, I elaborate on her thoughts
about the writing process as one way of constructing identity in rela-
tion to her own process of writing Borderlands/La Frontera. I examine
some precious materials held in the Gloria Evangelina Anzalda Papers
at the University of Texas at Austin. As Anzalda herself explains in her
essay On the Process of Writing Borderlands/La Frontera, as well
as in some letters to friends, her original intention was to publish a
poetry collection. She selected poems that focused on her experiences
growing up on the border, and decided to write an introduction. Then
she realized that she needed to expand this introduction into a longer
essay (Anzalda, Gloria 188). Among multiple notes and fragments,
The Gloria Anzalda Papers include the first complete draft of the
initial poetry collection, dated April 1985, as well as the first com-
plete version of the prose section, dated October 1986. I analyze both
manuscripts in relation to the published version. My study shows how
Anzalda structured and restructured the book several times following
what she later called the Coyolxauhqui Imperative in what I describe
as a Chicanization or borderization process. This process entailed
a repositioning with regard to her writings in This Bridge. Continuous
(re)positioning will be a constant feature of her writings and has to do
with her own understanding of dangerous beasts poetics as an ongoing
endeavor in which there is never any resolution, just the process of
healing (Anzalda, Let Us Be 312).
Constant self-reflection and a revisionist agenda are central aspects
in Chicana poetics. Chapter 2 examines both in the works of Cherre
Moraga. First, I argue that, while she is formulating her theory in
the flesh, Moraga also constructs a metanarrative about her own
role both as a Chicana artist, and as spokesperson for those who have

INT RODUCT ION 17
been traditionally marginalized within the Chican@ community. This

personal narrative gives us clues about her own ideal vision of the
Chicana writing subject/intellectual. The second part of chapter 2
studies Moragas dramatic production in connection with her theory
in the flesh, by discussing how her characters account for fictional
figurations of the Chicana that I describe as mythopoetic selves. I
do so by exploring Moragas revision of the philosophy of Teatro

Campesino. Moragas main concern as an intellectual is to remain
specific and to avoid abstraction. In this sense, the central question
is how to conciliate her emphasis on creativity and the imagination
with a constant preoccupation with the specificity of her position as a
Chicana writing subject.
In chapter 3, I am interested in locating Chicana poetics within con-
temporary feminist theories. I return to Braidotti and her interest in the
current state of affairs in global feminisms. In Metamorphoses: Towards
a Materialist Theory of Becoming (2002), she offers an overview that
serves to locate my discussion. Braidotti explains how contemporary
feminist trends tend to give priority either to issues of social justice
or to issues of sexuality, desire and the erotic imaginary (Braidotti,
Metamorphoses 5). Those who focus on social justice usually group
themselves under the label of Gender studies. They separate them-
selves from those feminists who are concerned with the performativity
of gender and sexuality, taking the body and concrete sexual acts as
points of departure in a more radical critique. Braidotti makes this
distinction to locate herself as a member of the second group, in the
wake of what she calls the materialism of the flesh schoola philo-
sophical tradition that has developed since the eighteenth century and
consolidates in the works of Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem,
Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Luce Irigaray, and Gilles Deleuze
(Braidotti, Metamorphoses 5).
Braidotti highlights the fact that feminists of color occupy a liminal
position in between these two contemporary approaches. Their loca-
tion is, according to her, unique in contemporary feminist debates.
However, it is not part of Braidottis project to explore this interme-
diate standpoint in depth. How do feminists of color come to occupy
that intermediate position? What are their specific motivations and
concerns?
With Braidottis concept of the feminist as nomadic subject in
mind, I reflect upon these questions through a comparative analysis
of Ana Castillos The Mixquiahuala Letters (1985) and Emma Prezs
Gulf Dreams (1996). Castillos novel counts as one of the most repre-
sentative works of fiction of the Chicana and Latina publication boom

of the mid-1980s. It is structured as a series of letters addressed to an

Anglo American woman artist Alicia by a Chicana writer Teresa. Her
letters, which focus on Teresas geographical and psychological quest
for identity, can be read in different orders, following Argentinean
writer Julio Cortzars Rayuela (Hopscotch, 1963). Prezs novella
Gulf Dreams is narrated by an unnamed Chicana lesbian who returns
to her hometown in Texas after ten years of absence to attend a rape

trial in which some of her acquaintances are involved. At the end of
the novel, it is implied that she murdered Chencho, the only man con-
victed, and who molested her when she was a teenager. Her narrative
of return is complicated by her account of a turbulent lesbian affair
that she had before leaving for Los Angeles, and her relationship with
a Chicano Movement activist.
Prez has written extensively about Chicana desire. She is reputed
to be one of the few Chicana feminists to incorporate psychoanaly-
sis to her conceptualizations. In his Lacanian study of Prezs works,
Antonio Viego contends that for her the Chicano subject is not
only a social and political subject, but also a psychoanalytic subject
in language (Viego 166). In contrast, Castillos literary texts and
cultural criticism, especially her concept of Xicanisma, have been
associated with an ethnosocial approach that may be initially closer to
social justice preoccupations. I examine both the I of the Chicana
writer in Ana Castillos novel and the voice of the unnamed narrator
in Gulf Dreams as figurations of the Chicana subject that emphasize
their nomadic condition in different ways. While Castillos subject is
expansive and promotes intersubjective communication, Prezs
tries to come to terms with trauma in a complex ontological turn.
To construct their figurations of the Chicana subject, Castillo and
Prez use characters that are fictional, while Anzaldas and Moragas
are mythopoetic. In chapter 4, I focus on how Alicia Gaspar de Alba
reinvents Sor Juanas mythohistorical figure as a figuration of the
Chicana writing subject. Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz (16481695) has
become a protofeminist writer and an icon in Hispanic cultures and
contemporary feminisms worldwide. The multiple interpretations of
her life and works are indicative of the specific concerns of feminist
writers in different locations and at different moments in time. In
this context, I interpret Gaspar de Albas figuration of the nun in Sor
Juanas Second Dream (1999) as a semblance of the Chicana danger-
ous beast. Her novel can be compared with Chicana Estela Portillo-
Trambleys play Sor Juana (1980). The Mexican nun is reinvented at
two different moments of Chicana feminism1980 and 1999to
emphasize two different aspects of her figure: her sacrifice for the

INT RODUCT ION 19
communityin Portillo-Trambleyand her struggles to become a

recognized writer, and an independent scholar in colonial timesin
Gaspar de Albas approach. Gaspar de Alba focuses on the importance
of appearance by incorporating clothing and attire into the discus-
sions on Chicana identity politics as well as on homoerotic desire,
by connecting embodiment with textual production. I reflect upon
Gaspar de Albas conceptualization of Sor Juana as a queer hero for

Chicana scholars in relation to her concepts of cultural schizophre-
nia and border consciousness, reading her theories as variations
that account for a democratic enrichment of Chicana poetics.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with an expansion toward greater contexts, in
a new section that I call Global Interventions. I explore how contem-
porary Chicana poetics participates in global discourses on cohabitation
and human rights. Chapter 5 examines the central metaphor of the
rebozo (Mexican shawl) in Sandra Cisneross novel Caramelo (2002) in
relation to the construction of a feminist theoretical I in her novel.
The first-person female child narrator and character Celaya Reyes fuses
with the voice of the implicit author to create a disruptive conceptual
persona through which Cisneros constantly rebuilds her particular poet-
ics and reinvents elements of the Chicana/o literary tradition. I focus
especially on how the rebozo, the Mexican shawl, becomes an over-
arching metaphor in Cisneross poetics and worldview, and how she
reimagines, from a feminist perspective, an element of the Mexican and
Chican@ cultural tradition that is traditionally considered feminine. In
this context, Cisneros considers writing as a process of weaving. In this
process, selves are also being connected in different ways. This chapter
suggests that Cisneros, by means of the metaphor of the rebozo, is
also conceptualizing a weaving of selves from a global perspective. This
notion may be directly related to Gloria Anzaldas concept of inter-
connectedness in her later writings, as well as to Chicana cultural critic
Norma Alarcns studies on Chicanas and multiculturalism, and Chela
Sandovals differential consciousness.
Chapter 6 aims to discuss the core ideas of contemporary Chicana
poetics in relation to the analysis of cultural production related to
gender violence in the USMexico borderlands. Chicana artists and
scholars leading role in denouncing the killing of women in Ciudad
Jurez is a paradigmatic example of their intervention in global activ-
ist movements and their contribution to human rights discourse. This
intervention is one of the multiple engagements that characterize
postnationalism in contemporary Chicana cultural production.
In this chapter, I analyze Lourdes Portillos influential poetic doc-
umentary Seorita extraviada (2001) and Alicia Gaspar de Albas

detective novel Desert Blood (2005) in relation to a collective con-

struction of a global aesthetic discourse that addresses grave human
rights violations against women at the borderI include a dialogue
with other prominent cultural productions that deal with the Jurez
murders from multiple transnational perspectives, especially Chilean
Roberto Bolaos influential novel 2666. Both works are narrated from
the viewpoint of the Chicana intellectual. Portillo is the narrative voice

in her documentary. In Desert Blood, the third-person narrator fuses
with the authorial voice at the end of the novel. Both works are part of
their authors symbolic return to their hometowns to engage in activ-
ism at local and global levels. According to Joseph Slaughter, human
rights and literature provide mutually enabling fictions (Slaughter).
Contemporary Chicana poetics expand this notion by showing a com-
plex interaction of human rights, art, and theory.
So in chapter 6, the study of the fictionalization of the killing of
women in Ciudad Jurez is presented as an example to suggest a global
approach to border issues and the need for the cultural critic to take
a decentered critical position. This position should take into account
multiple transnational perspectives on border subjects from differ-
ent centers of power. The constant positioning and repositioning of
the Chicana subject requires, analogously, a decentered and movable
critical standpoint. I address this notion continuously in this book by
refusing to limit my analysis to one particular school of thought, one
cultural field, one author, or one interpretation; I engage and disen-
gage with theories and conceptualizations by Chicanas in order to
analyze their artistic expressions; and I both follow and separate from
traditional academic writing practices. In the Epilogue, I discuss these
aspects in relation to my own experience as a non-Chicano Chicano
studies scholar since 1999. I go back to Chicana writers ideas on posi-
tionality that appear throughout the book to add an ethical dimension.
I suggest that the democratization implicit in Chicana poetics opens
up broad avenues for non-Chicano participation under certain param-
eters, providing that the critic, as the reader of this book, engages
in the shaping of Chicana poetics itself, and in its creative process of
transformation.

Part I
Dangerous Bodies/Texts


Juncture
Polycentricity

I n Part 4 of the prose section of Borderlands/La Frontera, the Aztec
goddess Coatlicue is an archetype in the Jungian sense, a presence
in the narrators psyche: For me, la Coatlicue is the consuming
internal whirlwind, the symbol of the underground aspects of the
psyche (Borderlands 68). Coatlicue lives inside the narrative per-
sonas inner self together with other myths of Chicanas particular
pantheon of diosas:
Ive always been aware that there is a greater power than the con-
scious I. That power is my inner self, the entity that is the sum total
of all my reincarnations, the godwoman in me I call Antigua, mi
diosa, the divine within, Coatlicue-Cihuacoatl-Tlazoleotl-Tonantzin-
Coatlalopeuh-Guadalupe they are one. (Borderlands 72)
In a footnote, Anzalda acknowledges that she is following James

Hillmans Re-Visioning Psychology (1976). Hillmans polycentric and
polytheistic view of personality what he later called archetypal
psychology is a main source for Anzaldas spiritual and mythical
understanding of the New Mestiza consciousness in Borderlands. A
close look into Hillmans notions about personifying and imagin-
ing things not only discloses how influential his 1976 book was for
Anzalda, but also reveals how archetypal psychology has remained
at the core of subsequent radical Chicanas theoretical quests to find
fantasy images of their psyches, and to make them part of their
polycentric figurations of themselves.
For Hillman, personifying is . . . both a way of psychological
experience and a method for grasping and ordering that experience
(Hillman 378). His Jungian approach to psychology favors the use of
images and metaphors instead of bare abstract concepts. In Hillmans

24 RADICAL CHICANA POETICS
thought, myths and archetypes become recognizable as persons

within our psyche. They are guiding spirits . . . with ethical positions,
instinctual reactions, modes of thought and speech, and claims upon
feelings. These persons, by governing my complexes, govern my life.
My life is a diversity of relationships with them (35). Polycentricity
means recognizing our concrete existence as metaphors, as mythic
enactments (157). The procedure, following Hillman, starts with

dealing with the little people, the daimones or archetypal persons
that represent what Jung calls Shadow, Self, Ego, and Anima.
In her search for a method of differential consciousness and spiri-
tual transformation, Anzalda proposes, as point of departure, to
establish a dialogue with the personified images and metaphors inside
ones inner self, and to acknowledge our relationship with them
as living psychic subjects (Hillman 32). Our individual conscious-
ness is shaped by our internal relationship with many reincarna-
tions. Only by dealing with how personified images and metaphors
govern their inner selves can Chicanas and border subjects give
an account of themselves, start addressing their oppression, and ini-
tiate emancipatory actions. At the level of collective consciousness,
Anzalda intends to preserve individual differences in the processes
of coalition politics. As I explained in the Introduction, by conceiv-
ing Chicana as a polycentric subject position, in the early 1980s
Anzalda stands out against an earlier ethnonationalistic understand-
ing of Chicano identity, and rejects views that promote the erasure of
internal differences.
In its early stages, Anzaldas method is strikingly similar to
Hillmans. She argues that Chicanas and Chicanos need to return
to Aztec cosmology following Hillmans return to Hellenism as
the ancient culture that best represents polytheistic psychology and
identity. If we read the section in Hillmans book on returning to
Greece through Anzaldas indigenist eye, changing Hellenism
for Aztec thought or Aztec culture, we can appreciate one of
her strategies in the process of conceiving Borderlands and her early
dangerous beasts poetics:
Hellenism [Aztec culture], however, brings the tradition of the uncon-

scious imagination; Greek [Aztec] polytheistic complexity bespeaks
our complicated and unknown psychic situations. Hellenism [Aztec
thought] furthers revival by offering wider space and another sort of
blessing to the full range of images, feelings, and peculiar moralities
that are our actual psychic nature. They need no deliverance from evil
if they are not imagined to the evil in the first place

P O LYC E N T R I C I T Y 25
. . . Greece [Aztec civilization] provides a polycentric pattern of

the most richly elaborated polytheism of all cultures, and so is able
to hold the chaos of the secondary personalities and autonomous
impulses of a field, a time or an individual. The fantastic variety offers
the psyche manifold fantasies for reflecting its many possibilities.
(Hillman 289)
Anzalda mentions Hillman in an early interview in 1982 when

she explains what she understands as a writing of convergence. In
his study of Renaissance theories on the anima, Hillman defines
Gloria duplex as the capacity of having more than one standpoint,
seeing behind, seeing through, and hearing the many voices of the
soul (Hillman 211). Anzalda adapts this idea to her early philo-
sophical system: I gave it a name. I called it the Gloria Multiplex
because I thought I was multiple. Multiplicity provided her with
the point of view of looking at things from different perspectives in
the process of writing (Anzalda, Interviews/Entrevistas 37).
There are evident intertextualities between Hillmans and
Anzaldas books, but what attracted Anzalda the most was the
subversive component of Hillmans approach to consciousness or
soul-making. Hillman rejects the pathologization of schizoid
polycentricity. Instead, he argues for accepting its working within
the individuals psyche. A polycentric personality is not necessarily a
disease, and can be turned into our own advantage. Dissociation may
be acknowledged and used as a positive force:
The phenomena of dissociation breaking away, splitting off, personi-

fication, multiplication, ambivalence will always seem an illness to
the ego as it has become to be defined. But if we take the context of
the psychic field as a whole, these fragmenting phenomena may be
understood as reassertions against central authority by the individual-
ity of the parts. (Hillman 25)
Anzalda and most radical Chicanas embraced this understanding

of psychology to create their poetics. Dissociation and everything that
comes with it mainly displacement, personification, multiplication,
and ambivalence need to be considered as essential elements of differ-
ence. They all have a potential to empower Chicanas and atravesados.
Despite being generally overlooked, Hillmans influence on
Anzalda helps us clarify how she and radical Chicanas envision their
figurations of themselves as dangerous beasts, and how they incorpo-
rate the mythical and the spiritual as part of the political. Their poly-
theistic and polycentric approach to consciousness awareness is crucial

to understand the way Chicana thinkers create figurations of them-

selves as Chicana writers. The mythopoetic multiple selves included in
their texts are particular political fictions that focus on the body and
sexuality without losing track of the mythical and the spiritual, figur-
ing out ones own in-between states, and developing what she defines
as facultad, or ability to see beyond surface phenomena.
Regarding dangerous beasts poetics, what interests us is how

Hillman inspired Anzaldas thoughts on a writing of convergence.
Hillman defines schizoid polycentricity as a style of consciousness:
This style thrives in plural meanings, in cryptic double talk, in escap-
ing definitions, in not taking heroic committed stances, in ambisexu-
ality, in psychically detached and separate body parts (Hillman 35).
His method implies a set of questions regarding our relationship with
our myths and archetypes:
Where are they located? Are they knowable if so by what means, and
how can we prove their existence? What is their origin? How many
are there, and how do they form hierarchies and subclasses? Do they
change or age or go through history? What sort of body do they
have? How soon a psychology of archetypes begins to sound like a
mythology of gods! (Hillman 36)
These are questions that Chicana thinkers began incorporating into

their search for emancipatory methodologies since the 1980s, and
were added to more general ones in the construction of Chicana as
a polycentric subject position: What is Chicana? How can the story
Chicana be narrativized collectively? How can the individual and the
collective be conciliated in the construction of Chicana? How can
we include and amalgamate all experiences without erasing internal
differences?
Anzaldas thought evolved substantially since the publication of
Borderlands. Her early conception of her mission as a writer is, as she
said in the 1982 interview, to connect people to their reality their
spiritual, economic, material reality, to connect people to their past
roots, their ancient cultures (Anzalda, Interviews/Entrevistas 36).
These initial thoughts, which focused more on adding Aztec cosmol-
ogy into her method, were refined throughout her career in a zigzag-
ging movement between abstraction and actualization, while always
aiming for contingent synthesis and clarity. In her latest views on her
task as a writer, she will consider writing simply as compromiso to
create meaning, something new (Anzalda, Putting 92), in order
to leave a discernible mark on the world (Anzalda, When I Write I

P O LYC E N T R I C I T Y 27
Hover 238). However, her understanding of consciousness remained

faithful to Hillmans. For him, consciousness seeps in through mys-
tical participation in a processional of personifications, interfused,
enthusiastic, suggestible, labile (Hillman 35). For Anzalda, New
Mestiza consciousness includes this processional of personifica-
tions and the same interaction, passion, suggestibility, and contin-
uous change that Hillman describes. For radical Chicanas, creating

powerful polycentric figurations and reappropriating dissociation as a
potentially positive force are, since the 1980s, essential operations in
the construction of dangerous beasts poetics.


Chapter 1
Gloria Anzaldas Poetics: The Process

of Writing Borderlands/La Frontera
Art and theory aggrandize each other.

Gloria Anzalda, unpublished manuscript
A fter its publication in 1987, Gloria Anzalda gradually became

aware that Borderlands/La Frontera was on its way to be the single,
most influential book written by a Chicana. For the rest of her life,
she was concerned that her only full-length published book was misin-
terpreted, and that her thoughts were considered categorical, or inac-
cessible to larger audiences. However, most of all, she was worried
that people did not understand that her book was part of a life-long
project. Borderlands represented the most crucial step in her ongoing
search for a method, but nonetheless just one stage in the ongoing
(re)formulation of her work. That is why immediately after the publi-
cation of the book, she was already revising its contents, polishing and
reshuffling her ideas.
Anzaldas writings need to be approached as an organic whole.
Her thought is performative and contingent, and emerges as a con-
tinuum of accumulations, reformulations, additions, and provisional
syntheses. This process becomes a personal quest that is both aes-
thetic and theoretical, on the one hand. On the other, it becomes a
political intervention that aspires to be part of a collective ideological
struggle. In her works, both aspectsthe personal and the political
are shaped by metapoetic reflections. The evolvement of her thought
can be followed mostly in what she called autohistoria-teoras, or
personal essays that theorize (Anzalda, now let us shift 578).
However, some of her essential theorizations are to be found in
her published interviews and drawings, as well as in other precious

unpublished materials held at the Benson Library in the University of

Texas at Austin.
Anzalda is a metapoetic writer. Writing and how to write are essen-
tial preoccupations shaping her poetics. When she states that writing
is one way of constructing identity (Anzalda, To(o) Queer 272),
she is addressing both her position as spokesperson for Chicanas and
atravesados, and her occupation and mission as a writer. Her published

and unpublished materials show how passionate and determined she
was to incorporate a discourse on writingmetastories about being
a writer and about her writing experienceinto her own process of
identity formation. The incredible amount of work dedicated to draft-
ing and polishing her texts, as well as the large amount of unpublished
materials that she left are indicative of her obsessive perfectionism
and her ambition, both politically and aesthetically.1 The writer, as
she explains in Borderlands, is a healer, and a shaman. Her position as
leading intellectual is therefore that of the nahual or shape changer,
understood as a figure capable of transforming oneself, others, and
discourses.
In 2002, two years before her untimely death, Anzalda wrote in
her journal her own self-definition: shortestbioGEA: Feministvisionar
yspiritualactivistpoet-philosopher fiction writer (Anzalda, Gloria 3).
More than anything else, she considered herself a poet-philosopher
fiction writer. The rest of her self-definition comes as a one-word
modifier that accounts for, one could say, ideological qualities added
to the core of her identity as a poet-philosopher. If Anzalda consid-
ered herself, first and foremost, a writer, why shouldnt we consider
her occupation and vocation as one main point of entry into the study
of her works? If Anzalda represents the first generation of Chicanas
with prominent academic influence, why shouldnt we tackle the
implications of this achievement in our analysis of her thought?
AnaLouise Keating and several others complain that Anzaldas
work after Borderlands has been understudied, and that her con-
tribution to feminist thought, Queer studies, and Border studies is
much wider than what academics have shown. In this vein, recent
works have expanded Anzaldan studies by dealing with the inter-
section of additional identity markers such as disability, education,
and spirituality. Taking into account the historical context since the
late 1970s, the effervescence going on in the publication arena for
Chicanas in the 1980s, and the coming into play of the gender and
sexuality paradigm in Chican@ studies, I propose to go beyond an
analysis of Anzaldas production that focuses on just group identity
and group identity markers. My strongest argument in this chapter is

ANZ AL DAS P OE T ICS 31
that Anzaldas preoccupations with writing and the Chicana writer

are essential to understanding the evolution of her thought. Her the-
ory of oppositional consciousness, or the path of conocimiento,
is also a theory about its process through language and the arts. In
Anzaldas texts, being aware of this process shapes the process itself.
Her metapoetic reflections shape both her differential consciousness
theories and, by extension, her continuous rewriting of culture.

Dismembering / Re-membering: From Santa
Teresa to Coyolxauhqui
Anzaldas central metaphor for the processes of identity formation,
both individual and collective, is that of the dismembered body that
has to be re-membered. This metaphor is already present in her early
poem Holy Relics about the Spanish mystic poet Santa Teresa de
vila, which is part of Borderlands, but was first published in 1980. It
is a narrative poem that is divided into sections with a chorus in which
Anzalda gives voice to the body parts of Santa Teresa:
We are the holy relics,

The scattered bones of a saint,
The best loved bones of Spain.
We seek each other. (Anzalda, Holy Relics 144)
The early 1980 version of Conditions: Six. A Magazine on Writing

by Women with an Emphasis on Writings by Lesbians, includes a brief
introduction that identifies Santa Teresa as a visionary lesbian, a
Spanish mystic, feminist heroine, martyr, and poet, and explains
that: Although the dismemberment of saints to obtain sacred reli-
quaries was practiced on men as well as women, the terrible and
haunting story of St. Teresa especially touched the authors heart
(Anzalda, Holy Relics 144). Anzalda, in the early stages of her
work, reinvents Santa Teresa as a feminist icon focusing on a fictional
re-creation of her lesbian affections. Anzalda uses the Abulense saint
as a tool for exploring her lesbianism mostly because the nun is part of
Anzaldas own Spanish heritage.2
Manuel Martn-Rodrguez has extensively analyzed the connec-
tion of her Borderlands poems with the Spanish mystic tradition. As
he states, the use of the body metaphor refers to the reconstruc-
tion of the history of Chicanas. The holy relics account for the
fragmented parts of that history, and also for the disconnected sto-
ries of Chicanas; the chorus of the poem expresses Chicanas need

to establish networks of communication, and feminine alliances

(Martn-Rodrguez, Life 85).3
After Borderlands, Anzaldas autohistoria-teoras show her efforts
to theorize this body/text metaphor through the reinvention of the
Aztec myth of Coyolxauhqui. Traditionally, her story goes as fol-
lows: Coyolxauhquifaces painted with bells in Nahuatlwas
one of Huitzilopochtlis sisters. Their mother was Coatlicue (the

one with the skirt of serpents), a representation of Tonantzin (Our
Mother), the goddess of creation and destruction. Together with
her 400 brothers and sisters, Coyolxauhqui led a war party to kill
Huitzilopochtlis mother, trying to prevent him from being born.
But Huitzilopochtli emerged from his mothers womb and killed his
sister. After dismembering Coyolxauhqui, Huitzilopochtli threw her
head to the sky where she became the moon, trying to console his
mother by allowing her to see her daughters face at night (Bierhorst 9).
Anzalda describes her first encounter with Coyolxauhqui in her
essay Border Arte: Nepantla, el Lugar de la Frontera. It happened
when she was visiting the exhibit AZTEC: The World of Moctezuma
at the Denver Museum of Natural History in 1993:
I stop before the dismembered body of la diosa de la Luna, Coyolxauhqui,

bones jutting from sockets. The warrior goddess with bells on her cheeks
and serpent belt calls to mind the dominant cultures repeated attempts
to tear the Mexican culture in the U.S. apart and scatter the fragments
to the winds. This slick, prepackaged exhibition costing $3.5 million
exemplifies that dismemberment. I stare at the huge round stone of
la diosa. To me she also embodies the resistance and vitality of the
Chicana/Mexicana writer/artist. (Anzalda, Gloria 177)
Anzalda envisions Chicana artists as modern-day Coyolxauhquis,

in a way that is similar to how other Chicanas see themselves as
modern-day Malinches, modern-day Lloronas, or modern-day
Guadalupes. In her essay, Anzalda explicitly connects her initial ideas
about Coyolxauhqui with Chicana artist Yolanda Lpezs reinvention
of the Virgin of Guadalupe in her painting A Portrait of the Artist as
the Virgin of Guadalupe (1978), or with the dismemberment shown
in Marsha Gomezs stoneware sculpture This Mother Aint For Sale
(Gloria 177). Chicanas reinventions of the Virgin of Guadalupe have
focused on her role as an iconic mother for Chicanos, a nurturing
mother who represents, leads, and educates Chicano communities.
She embodies syncretism, mestizaje, and spiritual leadership, and is
often depicted as part of a composite of visual representations includ-
ing Coatlicue and Tonantzin. As I will discuss later, Anzalda, who

had considered Guadalupe and Coatlicue as central figures in her pan-

theon of diosas in Borderlands, turns her attention to Coyolxauhqui
and her dismembered body as an effective visualization of Chicana
artists.
Also in the early 1990s, Cherre Moraga considered the story of
Coyolxauhqui a machista myth in which Huitzilopochtli becomes
the foundational figure of patriarchy. Moraga proposed to value

Coyolxauhqui as the representation of la fuerza femenina that
Chicana artists may look for in their works: our attempt to pick up
the fragments of our dismembered womanhood and reconstitute our-
selves (Moraga, Last 74). As part of the symbolic reconstitution of
the Chicana as a damaged, marginalized subject, this constant search
for body parts informs Moragas production as a whole. In a way that
is similar to Anzaldas, the fragmented body as a polycentric compos-
ite of mythical selves is a fundamental concept in Moragas writings,
and especially in her plays that, according to her, present better than
any other genre the possibilities of blurring writing and action, theory,
and flesh (see chapter 2).
Anzalda integrates the moon diosa in her thought as a main meta-
phor for (re)writing, and (re)composing the story Chicana. This is also
a necessary step in what she calls the path of conocimiento in her later
works, which is a more elaborated version of her New Mestiza con-
sciousness in Borderlands. In this regard, her essay on border arte refers
to one of her symbolic, uneasy entrances into the Aztec museum. In
the 1990s, when she enters the museum of Aztec culture as it has been
dismembered by dominant ideologies, her political dis-identification
as a Chicana artist is with Coyolxauhqui. In her subsequent writings,
she embarks on the project of theorizing two main concepts as part of
Chicanas desire to re-member themselves, their identity, and their his-
tory through myth and metaphor: Coyolxauhqui consciousness, and
putting Coyolxauhqui together. Both are included in a more general
term, the Coyolxauhqui imperative.
A brief sketch of Anzaldas theories will serve us to place
Coyolxauhqui in the processes that Anzalda calls the path of cono-
cimiento (Table 1.1).
There is a first stage of arrebato (rapture)notice the mystic
vocabularywhen something jerks you out of your normal, everyday
activity self (Lara 44). This arrebato puts you in a state of nepantla,
a transitional space (Lara 44) that Anzalda identifies as the second
stage (47). The third stage is the Coatlicue state, which is linked to a
process that she calls, Coyolxauhqui consciousness, a consciousness
of the darkness, the underworld, the depression (Lara 45). The fourth
stage, the call to action or call for transformation, is when one feels

Table 1.1 The Path of Conocimiento
1st Stage: arrebato, a call to action

2nd Stage: nepantla, a transitional space
3rd Stage: the Coatlicue state and Coyolxauhqui consciousness
4th Stage: call for transformation, compromiso and conversion
5th Stage: putting Coyolxauhqui together
6th Stage: the blow-up, taking your story into the world
7th Stage: spiritual activism and forming holistic alliances

the need to transform oneself by composing a new story of oneself.
This means a compromiso and conversion. Putting Coyolxauhqui
together is the fifth stage. Being aware of ones own dismemberment,
[t]he old way doesnt work anymore, your ideas dont work anymore
so you have to arrange esos pedazos in a new order. Youre not only
putting the old self back together again, but in recomposition, youre
creating a new self. You have a new story. (Lara 47)
The sixth stage, the blow-up, is taking your story into the
world, testing it (Anzalda, now let us shift 563). This normally
includes confronting rejection and controversy. Finally, the seventh
stage is when true transformation occurs, what Anzalda calls spiri-
tual activism: you shift realities, develop an ethical, compassionate
strategy with which to negotiate conflict and difference within self and
between others, and find common ground forming holistic alliances
(now let us shift 545).
Anzalda is very careful to explain that the seven stages do not take
place in order. They normally overlap and occur simultaneously. She
clarifies that between all the different stages is also nepantla (Lara
47). So being in nepantla, a transitional space, becomes the most recur-
rent stage in the path of conocimiento. Transformation is about dealing
with constant states of becoming, with being nepantleras,border
subjects, or subjects in situational but predominant states of transition.
So what Anzalda calls the Coyolxauhqui imperative includes a
state of awareness of dismemberment or depressionCoyolxauhqui
consciousnessand the subsequent act of re-memberment
Putting Coyolxauhqui together. Anzaldas final essay published
during her lifetime offers her most developed conceptualization of the
Coyolxauhqui imperative:
Coyolxauhqui is my symbol for the necessary process of dismem-

berment and fragmentation, of seeing that self or the situations you

embroil in differently. It is also my symbol for reconstruction and

reframing, one that allows for putting the pieces together in a new way.
The Coyolxauhqui imperative is an ongoing process of making and
unmaking. There is never any resolution, just the process of healing.
(Anzalda, Let Us Be the Healing of the Wound 312)
The imperative refers to the process of consciousness-raising that

takes place during the path of conocimiento. This transformation

involves continuous engaging and disengaging, positioning and repo-
sitioning oneself in a demanding and arduous process that is never fully
realized. We do not look for resolution, but for the process of heal-
ing, which is physical and spiritual, both individual and collective.
What is relevant is that this act of re-memberment happens by
rewriting ones own story. The fifth stage, after the call to action,
to compromiso and to conversion, is essentially writing a new story
about ourselves. Putting Coyolxauhqui together is the act of com-
posing, of putting the ideas together and creating the textin this
case the story Chicana.
In her 1999 essay Putting Coyolxauhqui Together, a metastory
about the composition of an autohistoria-teoraher metapoetic essay
par excellenceAnzalda zooms in on the exploration of the process
of writing. Coyolxauhqui is the body/text metaphor that explains the
mission of Chicana writers and artists. The essay is a writing manual for
Chicanas and border subjects. In fact, there is evidence in the Gloria
Anzaldas papers at the University of Texas, Austin, that she was
indeed writing a manual on how to write, based on writing workshops
that she organized since the publication of This Bridge in 1980.
When she defines the different stages in the composition of the
text, from the predraft stage to the final revisions, Anzalda insists
that: The different stages in embodying the story are neither clearly
demarcated nor sequential nor linearthey overlap, shift back and
forth, take place simultaneously (Anzalda, Putting 247). This
unremitting method of shuffling and reshuffling, adding and discard-
ing, positioning and repositioning, and engaging and disengaging is
the one we can find in the process of writing Borderlands. Anzaldas
1999 writing manual is based, for the most part, on her experience
writing her only full-length book.
On the Process of Writing Borderlands

Anzalda presented On the Process of Writing Borderlands/La
Frontera as a paper in Pomona in 1991, and it was published posthu-
mously in The Gloria Anzalda Reader in 2009. She explained that her

original intention was to publish a poetry collection. First she selected

poems that focused on her experiences growing up at the border as a
Chicana lesbian, and then she decided to write an introduction. Later on,
she realized that she needed to expand this introduction into a longer essay.
Among multiple notes and fragments, The Gloria Anzalda Papers include
the first complete draft of the initial poetry collection, dated April 1985,
as well as the first complete version of the prose section, dated October

1986. I analyzed both manuscripts in relation to the published version.
My study shows how Anzalda restructured the book several times fol-
lowing what she called in her later works the Coyolxauhqui Imperative.
I describe this as a Chicanization or borderization process.
What Anzalda explained in her essay on the process of writing
Borderlands is insufficient. The drafts in the Anzalda Papers show fur-
ther complexities regarding the writing process. If we discuss them in
relation to her later writings, it is clear that during her career, she con-
stantly reflected upon her experience composing Borderlands, and inte-
grated her reflections as an essential part of her thought. Some context
about her situation at the time she conceived Borderlands reveals valu-
able information. After their collaboration as coeditors of This Bridge,
Moraga and Anzalda remained faithful to their radical personal and
collective endeavor as dangerous beasts, but took different paths in
their artistic careers. Moraga published her own personal anthology of
autobiographical texts, Loving in the War Years, in 1982, and immedi-
ately decided to get training in theater and playwriting. Anzalda kept
working on several projects: three poetry collections, a collection of
short stories, an autobiographical novel called Andrea; and a one-act
experimental play provisionally entitled La Chingada: A Poem-Play with
Music, Dance, Song, and Ritual. Few of these have been published.
In an interview in 1990, she also explained that after publishing This
Bridge, she wrote an autobiography entitled La serpiente que se come su
cola that she would never intend to publish, but that served as a basis
for Borderlands (Torres 135).4 While Moraga turned to drama and per-
formance, Anzalda focused on writing and teaching creative writing
in relation to identity formation. Writing Borderlands allowed her to
conceive her particular dangerous beasts poetics based on her notions
of New Mestiza consciousness and the Coyolxauhqui imperative.
Analysis of Poetry Collection

The poetry collection in Borderlands is a new collection. Almost
50 percent of the poems are not present in the April 1985 manuscript.
Sixteen poems out of 34 are not in the published 1987 version. None
of the 1987 sections coincide with the April 1985 sections. In fact,

Borderlands comes from poems that Anzalda wrote since the late
1970s, which she had organized several times in at least three differ-
ent poetry collections, according to her interviews and essays. She also
wrote new poems during the process of reconfiguring and expanding
her April 1985 manuscript, and during the composition of the prose
section from 1984 to 1987. Therefore, the April 1985 draft is not
exactly the original poetry collection to which she added an explana-

tory essay, as she explains in her essay on the process of writing the
book. The process was much more complex. It was a Coyolxauhqui
process of shuffling, altering, adding, and discarding. Let us appreci-
ate this in a more detailed analysis of the manuscripts (see Table 1.2).
As I mentioned above, the April 1985 manuscript consists of 34
poemsfour of them in both English and Spanishand are distributed
unevenly into five sections. Section I, Tihueque/Now Let Us Go
includes seven poems that delve into the historical and mythical past of
USMexico border subjects. The main images in this section refer to
dismemberment and wounding, representing the lack of history and
memory. The poems oscillate between concrete everyday-life border
scenes and general abstract reflections upon war and violence against
women. The most important poem is Holy Relics. The version is
similar to the one in the published version.
Table 1.2 Analysis of Poetry Collection
Borderlands The Borderlands/La Borderlands/La

April 1985 Frontera Frontera
First complete draft, Published in 1987
October 1986
A total of 34 poems (30 + 4) 68 poems in six sections 38 poems (36 + 2).

in five sections I. Ms antes en los Same six sections
I. Tihueque/Now Let ranchos
Us Go II. La prdida
II. Texas, Why Do You III. Crossers y otros
Call Me atravesados
III. Muse Bruja/Witch IV. Cihuatlyotl, Woman
Muse Alone
IV. Nightface V. Animas
V. Serpent Woman VI. El Retorno
16 poems do not make it into 21 poems are new

the final 1987 version. with regard to the
1985 draft.
18 poems go to 1987 version

(17 in the poetry collection, one
in the prose section).

Section II, Texas, Why Do You Call Me includes eight poems

in which PrietaAnzaldas alter egois always the main character.
She is a young Chicana who has left Texas and has a conflicting rela-
tionship with Texas culture. This section constructs Prieta as a young
Chicana girl, as a border subject, and as aqueer. The poem Como
ella: Immaculate, Inviolate, for example, includes Prietas desire to
discuss sexuality with the older generation of women in her family,

and their refusal to talk about it. The next poem, Del otro lado,
places Prieta in an in-between state as a marginalized queer border
subject. The language of the border is used to describe queerness:
Pushed always to the other side.

In all lands alien, no where citizen.
Away, she went away
But each place she went to
Pushed her to the other side,
Al otro lado. (Gloria. Box 32. Folder 9.)
This poem was part of the October 1986 draft, but was not included
in the final version. It appeared in the anthology by Juanita Ramos
Compaeras: Latina Lesbians (1994), opening the anthology, and
with its title as a heading for the first section of the book, the one that
connects each of the contributors ethnicity with their lesbian sexual-
ity (Ramos xxii). Anzalda probably decided not to include this poem
in the final version of Borderlands because she had already submitted
it to Juanita Ramos. However, the poem is central to the structure
of the April 1985 manuscript as one that includes hybrid cultures,
ethnicities, and sexualities as part of border subjectivities; or, in other
words, as one of Anzaldas earliest attempts to metaphorize the bor-
derlands as both geopolitical and psychosexual.
Section III, Muse Bruja/Witch Muse, has nine poems that focus
on the figure of the writer as dangerous, as an enemy of the state.
The whole section is a continuation of Anzaldas reflections in This
Bridge, as well as of her search for answers to the question Why am I
compelled to write? In The Dark Muse, writing and the need for
writing emerge from inside the body; they pull from the entrails
as deep hungers/to feed the wound (Anzalda, Borderlands 62).
It is remarkable that this poem contains the origin of the metaphor
of the border as herida abierta as a trope that is directly related to
the pleasure and suffering involved in the writing process. There is a
strong need to heal the wound through writing, but writing is also
something that comes as a basic bodily need, as tremendous hunger.5

Section IV, Nightface, includes seven poems that depict crisis

and staying in a liminal position. The borderlands are clearly defined
here as a space that is inhabited by the atravesados, or the abnormal,
as they will later be defined in the prose section. However, this section
emphasizes the spiritual and psychological aspects related to being
in the borderlands. In Encountering the Medusa, the final trans-
formation occurring in the poemher becoming Medusahappens

after a block and being frozen in a borderland (Keating, Gloria
102). In addition to the explicit reference to the title of the collection,
this poem is essential to appreciate the process of Chicanization that
takes place during the composition of the book. I will come back to
this in more detail later.
Section V closes the collection with one short poem Serpent
Woman and two long poems The Border and Cancin de la diosa
de la noche. The last one stands out because of the final transforma-
tions of the poetic voice. First, she becomes the gate between the
world of reality and the supernatural. But at some point the female
I of the poetic persona and the you of the implicit reader merge:
you are the gate. This poem introduces an early version of the
concept of nos/otras. The abstract entity youaddressee, and
implicit readeris actually the link, the connecting tissue between
the I of the authorial voice and the she/he of the reader. You,
as including nos/otras, is the gate toward transformation, and
spiritual activism, the last stage in the path of conocimiento.
So the structure of the April 1985 draft shows an ontological
quest. The first three sections focus on her identity as a Chicana at the
USMexico border, on her queer sexuality, and on being a writer. The
fourth section addresses the title of the collection. Due to the effect of
the former three identity markers, the poetic persona is blocked in
a borderland or state of transition, both spiritually and psychologi-
cally. Finally, the fifth section hints at the potential to move on and
spiritual transformation through the merging of the authorial I and
the implicit readeryou are the gate.
How does this differ from the 1986 version, and the published ver-
sion? The book composition shows a complex Coyolxauhqui process.
Anzalda revised and redistributed the poems. Most poems from the
first two sections in 1985 became part of Sections I and II. Out of seven
poems in Section II, and seven in Section III, only two and three poems
came from the 1985 draft, respectively. Three out of six poems are new
in Section V, and four out of five are new in Section VI. Anzalda
discarded seven poems that appear only in the 1985 draft, and also 21
poems from the October 1986 version.

The comparison leaves us with a number of significant differences.

First, in the published version there is a proliferation of figurations of
the atravesado as a USMexico border inhabitant (Sections I and II),
and as queer (Section III). Sections IV and V introduce figurations of
the Chicana as a more complex atravesada subject who is in the pro-
cess of conscious awareness by recognizing her condition inhabiting
the transitional psychological and spiritual space called borderlands.

Finally, for Section VI, El Retorno, Anzalda left only one poem
the essential onefrom Part 5 in the 1985 draft, Cancin de la diosa
de la noche, and added four new ones that encourage Chicanas and
atravesados to go through their transformation with perseverance and
determinationArriba mi gente, To Live in the Borderlands Means
You, and No se raje, chicanita (twice, in English and in Spanish).
The higher number of figurations clearly amounts to a higher
emphasis on the violence inflicted against Chican@s, border natives,
and queers. Furthermore, it also shows that Anzalda reduced the
emphasis on archetypal psychology, and most importantly, she
reduced the emphasis on writing and being a writer. She discarded
those poems that dealt with archetypal psychology alone, as well as
five out of the nine poems in Section III of the 1985 draft. This sec-
tion, entitled Muse bruja/Witch Muse, focused heavily on the fig-
ure of the writer. These changes came not only as a result of a process
of synthesis and borderization, but also, as we will see, as a result of
the impact of adding the prose section.6
Analysis of Prose Section

The first complete draft of the prose section is dated October 1986, and
after this draft there is evidence of at least nine more (see Table 1.3).
Anzalda was expanding an initial essay of four parts: The Homeland,
La Facultad, Entering into the Serpent, and Movimientos de
Rebelda. She developed the sections numbered 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the
book out of subsections that were originally included in these four
parts. Sections 5 and 7 in the published book were expansions of sec-
tions within Part One of the first draft. Part Four: Movimientos de
Rebelda, became Section 2 in the final version. The subsections start-
ing and ending Part One in the first draft, entitled A Struggle of
Borders and El retorno, become the opening and closing subsec-
tions of 7. La conciencia de la mestiza in the published version.
The organization of the prose section involved reshuffling sections,
mostly expanding, but also reducing some content. The section on the
Medusa State, included in Part Four, developed into a full chapter,

Table 1.3 Analysis of Prose Section
The Borderlands/La Frontera Borderlands/La Frontera

First complete draft, October 1986 Published in 1987
Contents (Prose Section) Contents (Prose Section)
Preface Preface
Part One: The Homeland ATRAVESANDO FRONTERAS/

Una lucha de fronteras/A Struggle of CROSSING BORDERS
Borders 1. The Homeland, Aztln / El otro
Aztln, El Otro Mxico Mxico
El destierro/The Lost Land El destierro / The Lost Land
How to Tame a Wild Tongue El cruzar del mojado / Illegal
Oye cmo ladra Crossing
Si le preguntas a mi madre que es 2. Movimientos De Rebelda y las
Part Two: La Facultad culturas que traicionan
El choque The Strength of My Rebellion
A Tolerance for Ambiguity Cultural Tyranny
The Path of the Red and Black Ink Half and Half
El metate y el molcajete Fear of Going Home: Homophobia
No tener que rendir cuentas Intimate Terrorism: Life in the
El retorno Borderlands
Part Three: Entering into the Serpent The Wounding of the india-Mestiza
Ella tiene su tono 3. Entering into the Serpent
Coatlalopeuh Ella tiene su tono
Encarnados mis recuerdos Coatlalopeuh, She Who Has
Coatl Dominion Over Serpents
The Presences Sueo con serpientes
The Presences
Part Four: Movimientos De Rebelda La facultad
The Strength of My Rebellion 4. La herencia de Coatlicue / The
Cultural Tyranny Coatlicue State
Intimate Terrorism Enfrentamientos con el alma
The Medusa State El secreto terrible y la rajadura
La gorra, el rebozo, la mantilla Nopal de Castilla
Homophobia: Fear of Going Home The Coatlicue State
Half and Half The Coatlicue State is a Prelude to
(Gloria, Box 32. Folder 13) Crossing
That Which Abides
5. How to Tame a Wild Tongue
Overcoming a Tradition of Silence
Oye cmo ladra: el lenguaje de la
frontera
Chicano Spanish
Linguistic Terrorism
Vistas, corridos y comidas: My
Native Tongue
Si le preguntas a mi mama, qu eres?
continued

Table 1.3 Continued
The Borderlands/La Frontera Borderlands/La Frontera

First complete draft, October 1986 Published in 1987
6. Tlilli, Tlapalli / The Path of the Red

and Black Ink
Invoking Art
Ni cuicani: I, the Singer

The Shamanic State
Writing is a Sensuous Act
Something To Do With the Dark
7. La conciencia de la mestiza / Towards
a New Consciousness
Una lucha de fronteras / A Struggle
of Borders
A Tolerance for Ambiguity
La encrucijada / The Crossroads
El camino de la mestiza / The
Mestiza Way
Que no se nos olviden los hombres
Somos una gente
By Your True Faces We Will Know
You
El da de la Chicana
El retorno
4. La herencia de Coatlicue/The Coatlicue State. Part One in the

first draft was the basis for Parts 1, 5, and 7 in the final version. La
Facultad was reduced from being a whole part in earlier drafts, to
just a section in Part 3 of the book.
In her writing manual essayPutting Coyolxauhqui Together
Anzalda explains what one should do when revising a second draft:
You do the first read-through silently. You work on the large chunks,
saving the detailed work for later revisions. You repeatedly cut and rear-
range, shape and focus the material. You input the changes and tackle
the repetitions and abstractionsyour major literary vices. You throw
out whole sections, paragraphs, and sentences; you expand others. You
look at the tone and ask: does it reflect your feelings about your writing
process? Is this story more than just a personal record of your process
that is, have you placed it in the context of the world and some of its
social, political realities? (Anzalda, Putting 2534)
The process of writing Borderlands shows Anzaldas primary con-

cern on situating her story in the context of the world and the

social, political realities that were more urgent for her in the mid-
1980smostly the systemic violence against Chican@s, indigenous
peoples, and queers. Most importantly, Anzalda was transforming
her original poetry collection, which emphasized her Chicana and her
lesbian identity through the lenses of polycentric psychology, into an
essay that, although based on the tenets in Hillmans book, elaborated
her own philosophical and psychological approach.

My analysis of the main drafts of Borderlands reveals a progressive
incorporation of Aztec images and Aztec thought. Anzalda not only
rewrites culture from an indigenist perspective but also explains her
condition as a Chicana border subject. Moreover, she offers multiple
figurations of the queer subject, always in relation to ethnicity and its
intersection with sexuality. She is gradually creating her own theory
of the border subject and border identity, which is also a theory of
the Chicana queer subject. Moreover, in this process, she is reflecting
upon the writing process itself. Her metastory shapes her story and
vice versa. The metapoetic discourse in the original poetry collection
is moved to the parts that are devoted to language and writing in the
prose section. This implies omitting the metapoetic poems from the
April 1985 manuscript.
Overall, there is evidence of what we may call processes of
Chicanization and borderization in the composition of
Borderlands. These processes reveal Anzaldas discovery of a method
that she further elaborated for the rest of her life in both theory and
practice. By approaching the process of writing Borderlands in con-
nection with Anzaldas later works, we have access to the evolution
of her philosophy, and demonstrate how crucial that experience was
for her thought. We can outline how her method was evolving. Using
her own language, nos/otros can reach a stage of Coyolxauhqui
consciousness about her theorizing process. Furthermore, we can
value her metapoetic discourseher reflections about putting
Coyolxauhqui togetherwithin the demands of her transformative
method of oppositional consciousness, or Coyolxauhqui impera-
tive. I will elaborate on both aspects before concluding.
Medusa to Coatlicue to Coyolxauhqui

As we can clearly notice, Anzaldas myth-making process focused
on Coatlicue and Tonantzin in Borderlands, and moved on to
Coyolxauhqui (Coatlicues daughter) in her post-Borderlands writ-
ings. However, the drafts of Borderlands show a previous shift from
encountering Medusa (October 1986 draft) to encountering

Coatlicue (published 1987 version). This shift seems logical if we take

into account Anzaldas previous knowledge of archetypal psychology.
While writing Borderlands, she moved from Hellenism to Aztec cos-
mology. She discarded the poem Encountering the Medusa, which
was at the core of the April 1985 draft. In the prose section, she modi-
fied the subsection entitled The Medusa State, renamed it as The
Coatlicue State, and expanded it by adding a new subsectionThe

Coatlicue State Is a Prelude to Crossing. Additionally, Anzalda
underscored the importance of this shift by describing her encoun-
ter with the statue of Coatlicue at some point in the mid-1980s at
the Museum of Natural History in New York City. She inserted a
detailed description of her visualization of the statue that will have a
great impact on her later writings. This was her first symbolic entrance
in the Aztec museum:
I first saw the status of this life-in-death headless monster goddess

(as the Village Voice dubbed her) at the Museum of Natural History in
New York City. She has no head. In its place two spurts of blood gush-
ing up, transfiguring into enormous twin rattlesnakes facing each other,
which symbolize the earthbound character of human life. She has no
hands. In their place are two more serpents in the form of eagle-like
claws, which are repeated at her feet: claws that symbolize the digging
of graves into the earth as well as the sky-bound eagle, the masculine
force. Hanging from her neck is a necklace of open hands alternat-
ing with human hearts, the pain of Mother Earth giving birth to all
her children, as well as the pain that humans suffer throughout life in
their hard struggle for existence. The hearts also represent the taking
of life through sacrifice to the gods in exchange for their preservation
of the world. In the center of the collar hangs a human skull with living
eyes in its sockets. Another identical skull is attached to her belt. These
symbolize life and death together as part of one process. (Anzalda,
Borderlands 69)
Although Anzalda changed the reference from Medusa to

Coatlicue, she retained in her book the link to Medusa, and to
Hillmans interpretation of the Greek myth as a symbol of the fusion
of opposites, which was her original inspiration:
Coatlicue depicts the contradictory. In her figure, all the symbols impor-
tant to the religion and philosophy of the Aztecs are integrated. Like
Medusa, the Gorgon, she is a symbol of the fusion of opposites: the
eagle and the serpent, heaven and the underworld, life and death, mobil-
ity and immobility, beauty and horror. (Anzalda, Borderlands 69)

Medusa and Coatlicue helped her explain her rejection of despot

dualities, as part of her theories on the New Mestiza consciousness.
In Borderlands, a Coatlicue state consists of a deconstruction or dis-
mantling of a duality in order to reach a third element: Simultaneously,
depending on the person, she [Coatlicue] represents duality in life, a
synthesis of duality, and a third perspectivesomething more than
mere duality or a synthesis of duality (Anzalda, Borderlands 68).

In the context of Anzaldas early thought, Coatlicue states are not
merely deconstructionist or symbolic deterritorialization-reterritorial-
ization processes in a Deleuzean sense. They are not just about the
dismantling of gender and sexuality dualities, as other critics have
emphasized. As AnaLouise Keating explains, the term does not simply
represent a moment of psychological crisis. Rather, it refers to situ-
ational struggles to cope with those dualities as constructs that define
reality in a way that may not reflect how we live that reality or how
we explain it:
She [Anzalda] coined this term [Coatlicue state] to represent the resis-
tance to new knowledge and other psychic states triggered by intense
inner struggle which can entail the juxtaposition and the transmutation of
contrary forces as well as paralysis and depression. (Keating, Gloria 320)
The key to understand Anzaldas Coatlicue state lies in its per-

formative qualities. Coatlicue states are specific and situational
moments of crisis that may block us and/or call us to action. Studying
the section on Coatlicue in Borderlands as part of the evolvement
of her thought provides just one example of this performativity.
We have a beforethe pre-Borderlands poem Encountering the
Medusaand an afterthe Coatlicue state as the third stage in
her post-Borderlands theories on the path of conocimiento. The trans-
formation happening in Encountering the Medusa is essential. The
poetic persona is becoming Medusa as she visualizes the Gorgon in
the mirror, as part of her own image. In the process, the poetic per-
sona is blocked, and defines her crisis by being in a borderland.
Medusa is one of the myths or little persons living inside her, fol-
lowing Hillmans Re-Visioning Psychology. The poem is not only an
instance of Anzaldas transition from western to indigenous myths
(Keating, Gloria 101), or just proof of her indigenist feminist stance.
It also signals the beginning of her metaphorical use of the border-
lands as a psychological and spiritual condition.
As Anzalda herself explains in her book, Coatlicue states are part
of a travesa. Each Coatlicue state accounts for every increment

of consciousness, every step forward [that] is a travesa, a cross-

ing (Anzalda, Borderlands 70). However, it was not until her
post-Borderlands autohistoria-teoras that she could place Coatlicue
states as part of the travesa or path of conocimiento. As noted earlier,
Coatlicue states are part of the third stage, right after being aware of
nepantla, and before the call for transformation.
After Anzaldas reflections on writing Borderlands and her

symbolic second visit to the Aztec museum in the early 1990s,
Coyolxauhqui became the central figure in her pantheon of diosas,
displacing Coatlicue. Why did this happen? In my view, the Aztec
deity, and especially its rendition through the Coyolxauhqui stone,
offered greater possibilities as a visual and textual representation of the
body/text metaphor. In the context of the writing process, Coatlicue
states could refer to writers block, or those moments of crisis when
the writer becomes aware of the fragmentation of ideas involved in the
process of composition. This could also apply to the process of creat-
ing a work of art in general. Coyolxauhqui refers to re-membering,
and putting parts together in the process of composing a text or a
work of art. Its visualization through the Coyolxauhqui stone allows
for the embodiment of the idea of continual reshaping of the story
Chicanadespite opposite erasing forcesin a powerful way.
Anzaldas shift from Coatlicue to Coyolxauhqui as the leading
representation in her own pantheon of diosas is part of Chicana art-
ists collective search for referents and tools that express Chicana
experienceespecially their lived realities as artists and cultural work-
ers. This shift to Coyolxauhqui not only happened in Anzaldas and
Moragas work but also in Chicana feminist art. Two representative
examples will suffice to illustrate this shift in Chicana myth making
from the 1980s to the 1990s.
Yolanda Lpez Nuestra Madre is part of a series of feminist recre-
ations of the Virgin of Guadalupe spanning from 1981 to 1988. The
Virgin of Guadalupe merges with Coatlicue and Tonantzin, repre-
senting syncretism. The adornments that appear in their traditional
representations are put together to create a new polycentric represen-
tation of the Chicana. The abstraction of this renditionan impos-
sible monstrous image of the Chicanais part of a series in which
Yolanda Lpez also combines images of real-life Chicanas adorned
with symbols that pertain to the representations of the three deities.
Coatlicue/Tonantzin is the central representation coming from the
Aztec pantheon.
In Alma Lpezs mural Las Four (Figure 1.1), there are three
levels: the level of reality, with pictures of real-life young Chicanas;

the mythohistorical level, with Dolores Huerta, Sor Juana Ins de la

Cruz, the Adelita, and Rigoberta Mench; and the mythical level, with
Coyolxauhqui. Faithful to the title of the piece, there are four women
in the first two levels. However, the mythical level represents just the
Coyolxauhqui stone floating in the sky. This 4-4-1 structure clearly
locates Coyolxauhqui as the central Aztec diosa that can encompass
the mythical aspects of Chicanas. Coyolxauhqui not only becomes

prominent for Alma Lpez, but also for other Chicana feminist artists
from the 1990s to the present (see Juncture ).7
Anzaldas focus on Coyolxauhqui reveals a collective shift in
approaches to myth making and the figurations of the Chicana in the
1990s. This is just one example of how her constant rewriting of cul-
ture is part of a collective search for referents and tools that may better
depict the story Chicana and Chicanas Coyolxauhqui imperative
in their path of conocimiento in a performative and situational way.
What is important is that the Coyolxauhqui imperative, by linking the
Figure 1.1 Las Four by Alma Lpez 1997 (Digital mural)

Estrada Courts Community Center, Los Angeles, California.

body and the text, insists on the use of creativity and the imagina-
tion. At the core of Anzaldas and Chicana feminists approaches to
oppositional consciousness there is a call for greater awareness and
self-reflection about the relationship of art and theory, and about their
occupation as intellectuals.
Conclusion

How did Anzalda conceive the Chicana writer as a dangerous beast?
What role did her metapoetic reflections play in the construction of
her own poetics? Anzaldas monstrous polycentric visualizations
of the Chicana defy the museum of appropriated knowledges as
powerful figurations or political plots that have become so influential
in Chicana feminist thought. She insists on the positive potential of
these polycentric and mutating qualities. Nevertheless, appreciating
the positive potential of difference that Anzalda envisioned is not
a felicitous task. It means accepting and confronting dissociation
constant struggle, tensions, contradictions, pain, and psychic unrest
both at the level of the inner self, and at the level of the community
and day-to-day coalition politics. Dissociation becomes a style of con-
sciousness that is shaped by the text and the reading process. The con-
tradicting character included in the verb aggrandizing in Anzaldas
adagio art and theory aggrandize each other, perfectly illustrates
the tensions at the core of Chicana intellectuals creative goals.
Anzaldas metapoetic reflections on putting Coyolxauhqui
together shaped the ongoing construction of her method of opposi-
tional consciousness, which is governed by the Coyolxauhqui impera-
tive. In the continuum of her thought, her notions about the writing
process reflect her ideas about raising consciousness, and the possibili-
ties of empowerment for atravesados. Coyolxauhqui is both a central
trope and an essential tool that allows Anzalda to locate the text and
the body at the center of her theories of emancipation and spiritual
and political healing.
Overall, synthesis and clarity were Anzaldas main objectives in
her search for a method to rewrite culture and empower Chicanas.
But synthesizing is a provisional stage in the continuum of her work.
Moreover, it must be considered as part of a collective endeavor. Her
work cannot be systematized because of its own organic and holis-
tic nature. Her theories, conceptualizations and notions were never
fixed, but in constant reformulation and revision.
I concur with AnaLouise Keating and others regarding the critics
lack of attention to Anzaldas work after Borderlands. However, my

research shows how the process of writing her only full-length book
becomes essential in the shaping of her own thought. Borderlands is
a comprehensive synthesis of the collective ideas of feminists of color
up to the late 1980s, and it remains as the most solid exercise, on
the part of Anzalda, to organize her thought. The book becomes
a reference for her later writings, which evolve as variations, addi-
tions, and reconfigurations of theoretical notions and metaphorical

processes. Borderlands is a mandatory gate into Anzaldas thought
and an indispensable work in the study of the story Chicana.


Chapter 2
Cherre Moragas Theory-in-the Flesh

and the Chicana Subject
I n her review of Borderlands, entitled Algo secretamente amado

(1993), Moraga differs from Anzaldas approach to writing and
desire in subtle ways. First, she describes Anzaldas writing as self-
conscious and laborious when addressing metaphysical experiences
(Moraga, Algo 155). Then, she criticizes Borderlands for not being
a book about lesbian desire, or even desire in general. Although the
narrating I positions herself as a Texan Chicana lesbian from the
borderlands, according to Moraga, this has to do more with politics
than with the representation of desire per se:
Lesbian desire is not a compelling force in the book. In fact, desire in

the sexual sense is noticeably absent whether heterosexual or lesbian
[ . . . ] Anzalda states, I made the choice to be queer (19). What I
believe Anzalda is speaking to here is her political decision to identify
herself as a lesbian. (Moraga, Algo 155; emphasis in the original)
The Gloria Anzalda Papers, at the University of Texas, Austin,

include a manuscript copy of Moragas review with Anzaldas com-
ments in the margins.1 Both passages are marked. For the first one,
Anzalda wrote No!! underlined twice. For the passage about les-
bian desire, she jotted what about Leyla? (Gloria, Box 38, Folder 7).
Anzalda was referring to her long poem Interface, in which the
poetic persona tells the story of her relationship with Leyla, who at
the end of the poem happens to be an alien (Borderlands 152). In
some passages the poem addresses lesbian sexual desire explicitly
A cool tendril between my legs/entering./Her fingers, I thought/
but it went on and on (150) but the affair occurs

on the border between

the physical world
and hers.
It was only there at the interface
that we could see each other.
See? We wanted to touch.
I wished I could become
pulsing color, pure sound, bodiless as she.

It was impossible, she said
for humans to become noumenal. (Borderlands 148)
Lesbian desire is definitely a compelling force in this poemA

yearning deluged me/her yearning (149), but Moragas interpre-
tation emphasizes the supernatural aspect of the encounter that, for
Anzalda, may be metaphoric, considering the figuration of the lesbian
as an atravesada. As seen in Chapter 1, the poem Interface closes the
section entitled Crossers y otros atravesados, being one of two that
Anzalda kept from the first complete draft of the poetry collection. It
is, therefore, a central poem in her conception of Borderlands.
Moraga highlights Anzaldas tendency to be too abstract, sepa-
rating her account of her outcast conditionher queernessfrom
bodily experience. This fact, according to Moraga, leads to confus-
ing and obscure passages in Borderlands, especially when Anzalda
includes new age and psychological jargon (Moraga, Algo 154).
In her career as a writer and activist, Moraga looks for ways not
to separate her thought from bodily experiences. In her writings she
resists abstraction because it may lead to hermetism:
The pages [in Borderlands] become a kind of blueprint for la nueva

cultura that Anzalda envisions. Oftentimes, the symbols are so coded
only the architect can interpret them and only to herself. But the best
of the writing wroughts out a vision from a suffering which Anzalda
does not objectify, but lives. (Moraga, Algo 1556)
In this chapter, I explore Moragas concerns with specificity in

relation to her thoughts about the body and embodiment. I want to
add her concerns with defining a specific occupation or profession
that of the Chicana intellectual to ongoing discussions about her
indigenist focus on the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality. By
examining the emergence of a new kind of person (Appiah 24) rep-
resented by figurations of the Chicana artist in Moragas works, I offer
an analysis that recognizes her multiple figurations of the Chicana
and her construction of a particular dangerous beasts poetics. My

M O R AG A S T H E O R Y- I N -T H E F L E S H 53
approach will also allow me to untangle main differences between

her thought and Anzaldas as part of the developments of my ideas
in this book.
Moragas female voices represent the position of the Chicana sub-
ject as inside-outsider within her social group. A comprehensive read-
ing of her works shows how a feminist theoretical subject arises as
a merging of the authorial I of her essays with the voices of what

Moraga describes as visionary characters in her plays (Greene 325,
331). The voice of the Chicana in her works encapsulates both her
specific voice and a collective voice. In this regard, Moragas figura-
tions or political fictions may be interpreted in connection with
Gramscis concept of the organic intellectual, which emphasizes
her/his function as educational reformer (Gramsci 301), as well as
in relation to what Michel Foucault calls the specific intellectual
(Foucault 126), one that has to take into account the views of oth-
ers, that is, the community, in a constant state of dissent and self-
dissent (Foucault 448). However, Moraga adds a different vision of
specificityone that takes on a feminist tradition that insists on the
materiality of desire, and that encourages an embodied theoretical
discourse that fuses art and theory through self-reflection and self-
(re)construction.
Moragas Theory in the Flesh

Moragas first publications include the sections that she wrote as
coeditor of This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women
of Color (1981, 2001), and her first book Loving in the War Years:
Lo Que Nunca Pas por sus Labios (1983), which she describes as her
coming-out autobiographical text.2 These early writings offer a
theoretical framework upon which she subsequently builds her poet-
ics and career.
As mentioned in the Introduction of this book, as coeditor of This
Bridge, Moraga organized the materials thematically and wrote the
introductions to the first four sections: 1) The Roots of Our Radicalism;
2) Theory in the Flesh; 3) Racism in the Womens Movement; and
4) On Culture, Class and Homophobia (Moraga and Anzalda 2002,
liv). The second section includes her definition of theory in the flesh.
The concept is crucial to understand her later development as a writer,
and especially as a playwright. Moraga writes:
A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our
lives / our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual

longings / all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. Here we

attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience:
We are the colored in a white feminist movement.
We are the feminists among the people of our culture.
We are often the lesbians among the straight.
We do this bridging by naming our selves and by telling our stories
in our own words. (Moraga and Anzalda 21)

For Moraga, women of color need to document their own feminist
movement through writing and the arts. They need to define the
subject of their feminism in such a way so that it stays as close as pos-
sible to their physical realities, as well as to their geopolitical and
psychosexual location. As she states in an early interview with Norma
Alarcn, [o]ne thing about books is that they can get to places
where bodies cant (Alarcn, Interview 127). The main purpose
of collections like This Bridge is empowering women of color and dis-
seminating their voices and experiences in order to create sustainable
networks of collaboration. The point of departure has to be ones
own body, understood within the parameters of ones own specific
political location.
In her essay La Gera, she develops this idea by highlighting
the importance of specificity. The quote is well known in the field of
Chicana feminisms:
In this country, lesbianism is a poverty as is being brown, as is being

a woman, as is being just plain poor. The danger lies in ranking the
oppressions. The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of
the oppression. The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression
purely from a theoretical base. Without an emotional, heartfelt grap-
pling with the source of our oppression, without naming the enemy
within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical
connection among oppressed groups can take place. (Moraga, Loving
445; emphasis in the original)
For Moraga the main issue at stake is the embodiment of thought,

and how to construct a theory that emanates from the specific location
of Chicanas and women of color as selves with bodies that feel, and
with stories to tell. Her solution is to explore the possibilities of the
body as a metaphor starting from its consideration as the site of con-
vergence between the self and the external world. The body becomes,
in Moragas thought, not only a site of struggle but also an overarch-
ing metaphor that becomes the source for her theoretical discourse.
Three analogies are essential to understand her writings: between the

body and land, the body and myths, and finally between the body
and the Chicana artist and intellectual.
During the 1980s, Moraga becomes aware of her position as an
organic intellectual and spokesperson for Chicanas and women of
coloran organizer of masses of men [people], in Gramscis words
(Gramsci 301). This is evident in her later writings, particularly in
The Last Generation: Prose and Poetry (1993). The most popular essay

included in this volume, Queer Aztln: The Re-formation of the
Chicano Tribe, introduces the idea that women and men, in their
search for the sovereign right to wholly inhabit oneself (cuerpo y
alma) and ones territory (pan y tierra) (Moraga, Last 1734), need
to consider their bodies as lands or territories.3 She embarks on this
search from her specific position as a Chicana lesbian facing two fun-
damental contradictions. One has to do with family and the other
with nation. Both become central in her writings.
Being a lesbian, how can Moraga build a family within the param-
eters imposed by the traditional Mexican cultural institution? Her
critique proposes a radical restructuring of the family that includes
new possibilities for Chicanas. She urges both lesbian and straight
Chicanas, as well as gay Chicanos to make familia from scratch,
through the words of Marisa, one of the characters in her play Giving
Up the Ghost (Moraga, Giving 35). Her claim is implemented/
performed by her characters in subsequent plays, as well as in her
autobiographical book Waiting in the Wings: Portrait of a Queer
Motherhood.
With regard to her ideas about nation, Moraga insists on rein-
venting the term by including Chicana lesbians and gay Chicanos:
A Chicano homeland that could embrace all its people, including
its jotera (Moraga, Last 147; emphasis in the original). However,
she also wants to preserve the radicalism of the initial stages of the
Movement: Let us retain our radical naming but expand it to meet
a broader and wiser revolution (150). To do so, she proposes the
concept of tribalism to redefine the Chicano nationalist sentiment.
The term emphasizes indigenous roots as a source for a viable alter-
native socioeconomic structure that defies the patriarchal capitalist
family structure (166), rejecting both Mexican and Anglo American
configurations of family and nation. This focus on tribalism contin-
ues to be central later in her career, arguing for the use of the X in
Xicana and Xicano, and advocating for an indigenist approach:
I believe my conversation about strategies for revolution as a

Xicanadyke mother resides more solidly within the cultural-political

framework of American Indigenism than in any U.S. gay and lesbian

or feminist movement. (Moraga, Xicana Codex 8)
The evolution in Moragas thought from making familia from

scratch to inventing new ways of making culture, making tribe
(Moraga, Last 174) has some important similarities with Anzaldas.4
Both share a polycentric approach to myth-making, following a femi-

nist agenda that reacted against Chicano nationalists who tended
to simplify, if not suppress, the representation of female cultural
icons and myths in the artistic productions of the 1960s and 1970s.
However, Moragas interest in theater since the early 1980s led her
through different paths. While Anzalda took her approach to myths
from archetypal psychology (see Juncture ), and used it in hybrid
texts combining narrative and poetry, Moraga, although influenced
by Anzalda, approached myths through performance in the way
that was explored by Teatro Campesino in the initial stages of the
Movement.
According to Yolanda Broyles-Gonz lez, in the 1960s Teatro
Campesino developed a native Chicana/o performance theory and
practice that was at the same time a philosophy of life (80). This
philosophy understood myths as metaphors for the matrix of forces
and dynamics at work within visible reality (89). For actors in Teatro
Campesino, this conception required to see the myth within us and
to learn to move like the myths. These areabove allblueprints for
motion and not for thought (91). Similar to Anzalda, the members
of Teatro Campesino stressed the potential political power embedded
in mythical stories in a Jungian way and from their 1960s ethnona-
tionalistic approach. But while Anzalda conceived her polycentric
figurations in relation to the theoretical subject of Chicana feminism,
Teatro Campesinos was a theory of performance. This emphasis on
the body and embodiment is what interests Moraga as opposed to
Anzalda.
By merging body and myth, Moraga constructs a metaphorical
view of the body as polycentric or as a composite of mythopoetical
selves. Moraga considers bodies as the site of convergence of myths
that come to us as stories. These stories fuse myths with our fanta-
sies and fictions, and may account for our possibilities of realization as
individuals. The idea of dismembering clarifies the analogy between
body parts and mythopoetical selves. Dismembering the body is
breaking the unity created by a multiplicity of elements that come
together to create a unique individual. These elements are found at
the level of materiality. At the level of the self, dismembering is to

disarticulate a composite of exemplary stories that are metaphorical

of spiritual potentialities in the human beings (Broyles-Gonz lez
1994, 90). Finally, at the level of the community, dismembering is iso-
lating a plurality of voices that shape collective identities, understood
as identities-in-difference, if we use Norma Alarcns terminology.
As mentioned in chapter 1, Moraga considers the Aztec god-
dess Coyolxauhqui as the representation of la fuerza femenina for

Chicana artists. As part of the symbolic reconstitution of the story
Chicana, this constant search for body parts informs Moragas pro-
duction as a whole.5 The body as a land that includes a composite
of mythopoetical selves is Moragas main preoccupation. Her plays,
according to her, present better than any other genre the possibilities
of blurring writing and action, theory and flesh.
Both Moraga and Anzalda reinvent the Aztec female pantheon to
conceptualize their figuration of the Chicana as a fragmented body
that encapsulates mythical selves. In Borderlands, Anzalda highlights
the metaphysical, what she calls the Divine within or Antigua, mi
diosa (Borderlands 72). On the contrary, Moraga focuses on embodi-
ment and the materiality of the body. A clear example may be found
in their allusions to the Aztec deity Tonantzin. According to John
Bierhorst in The Hungry Woman: Myths and Legends of the Aztecs
(1984), there are three main representations of Tonantzin. First, she
can be the Hungry Woman, with mouths all over her body, crying
for food at night. Second, she may be the benevolent Snake Woman,
helping Quetzalcatl create human life. Finally, she can appear as
Snake Skirt Cihuacatl the virgin mother of Huitzilopochtli.6
Both Anzaldain Borderlands and Moragain her essay
Looking for the Insatiable Woman and her play The Hungry
Woman relate the myth of Tonantzin with the legend of La Llorona.
Moraga puts emphasis on the insatiability of Cihuacatl and her rep-
resentation as the Hungry Woman, with mouths all over her body,
while Anzalda only focuses on Tonantzin/La Lloronas mental
depression and sorrow. Anzalda omits the materiality of hunger
that Moraga wants to emphasize with her theory of the flesh.7
After Borderlands, as I analyzed in chapter 1, Anzalda developed
the concepts of Coyolxauhqui consciousness and the Coyolxauhqui
Imperative as part of her theories on the path of conocimiento.
Anzaldas focus on spirituality and psychology reinforces, in this
regard, Moragas accusations about being too abstract. However,
Anzaldas Coyolxauhqui Imperative, and especially her later use
of the concept to explain the writing process, shows another point
of convergence with Moragas thought. Both focus on their role as

writers and educational reformers. Anzalda wants to teach Chicanas

and atravesados how to write, and how to give an account of them-
selves through their stories. For Moraga the overall goal of Chicana
artists is to teach through art and practice (Moraga, Xicana Codex
207). For both, Aztec myths like Coyolxauhqui are fundamental
tools to achieve their aspirations as educational reformers. Their dan-
gerous beasts poetics has to do (1) with becoming an artist who is an

activist, and (2) with learning how to use art and activism in teaching
new generations of Chican@s, Latin@s, and atravesados.
Doing Theory through Drama

In Moragas evolution as a writer, she looks for ways to avoid both
abstraction and confusion, and to preserve a connection with the
materiality of desire through bodily experience. The question is how
to find the right forms, characters, and metaphors to keep this con-
nection. Her genre-crossing strategies in her essays and her transition
into theater to allow other fictional voices into her writing are both
indicative of her endeavors to keep the connection with the body.
After publishing her first play Giving Up the Ghost, Moraga con-
structs a metanarrative about her own persona as both a thinker and
a writerboth a cultural critic and a cultural producerwho finds
in dramatic writing an adequate medium for her thought and art.
She constructs a figuration of herself as an artist and intellectual who
is constantly self-reflective, resists easy categorizations, and rejects
assimilation into academia. As an artist, she conceives herself as a
revolutionary body that reads and writes (Loving 186). Interspersed
in her works, this metanarrative is essential to understand her partic-
ular style and unique position among Chicana/o thinkers and more
specifically among Chicana feminists of her generation.
In Looking Back, the preface to the expanded edition of Loving
in the War Years (2000), Moraga provides key aspects of the con-
struction of a narrative for her career. Only by writing Loving, her
coming-out book, could she move toward the more fictional. In
the first edition of Loving (1983), she told her own story, and once
she did that, she could proceed to allow other stories in her writings.
Moraga started with the individual self through poetry and essay
before allowing the collective voices of imagined others to populate
texts through theater. Moraga explains in 2000:
I have been writing drama professionally for over fifteen years now. It
is my fictionalized voice made possible through the autobiographical

musings of my non-fiction writings. Theater has also become, for me,

a new and oftentimes embattled forum for cultural criticism. (Moraga,
Loving vi)
Theater allows the incorporation of multiple stories. Storytelling is

for Moraga the appropriate space for artists to speak for our selves on
our own terms (Moraga, Loving 149). She continually highlights the

importance of storytelling as a necessary discursive space in Chicana/o
literature as a whole. In Sour Grapes: The Art of Anger in America,
she insists on considering storytellers as the chief purveyors of mem-
ory (Moraga, Loving 167). Begun as a reflection on August Wilsons
keynote address at a Theater Communications Group conference in
June 1996, this essay is relevant regarding her thoughts about theater
and the figure of the playwright. Moraga identifies with Wilson who
is, according to her, one of many warriors in the cultural battlefield
(Loving 152).8 Here the warrior is specifically the playwright who
is part of the small army required by collaborative art forms like
theater (Loving 156).
Once she explains her motivations to turn into dramatic writing,
Moraga constructs a narrative about her own career as a playwright.
She situates her theater in dialogue with two modalities of social
protest performances that developed in the 1960s and 1970s as part
of the social rights movements: the Teatro Campesino and feminist
theater.9 Her metanarrative up until 2000 may be summarized as
follows. As noted above, Giving Up the Ghost represents the transi-
tion from poetry and personal essay to theater, after Loving in the
War Years, her coming-out text. Her first play also shows her train-
ing in feminist avant-garde techniques in contrast with Shadow of a
Man a family play in the realistic tradition of American female play-
wrights. Thematically, at this point Moraga is more concerned with
reinventing the institution of the family from a feminist and queer
perspective. Her next two plays, Heroes and Saints and Watsonville:
Some Place Not Here, go beyond the imagistic/realistic dichotomy by
incorporating the mythopoetic to stories based on real events. Finally,
The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea represents the culmination of
her career, summarizing and expanding her previous dramatic writ-
ings and her thought.
In an interview with Alexis Green in 1999, Moraga discusses exten-
sively her dramatic production in relation to her thought. Her first
play, Giving Up the Ghost (1986), resulted from her need to under-
stand womens heterosexual desire. It includes nonlinear dramatic
monologues by Chicana lesbian Corky/Marisa, who is represented

at two points in time, and by her lover Amalia, who claims to be

heterosexual. This play, her most personal and experimental one,
allowed her to enter the Hispanic Playwrights Workshop at INTAR
in New York City in 1985, where Mara Irene Forns trained her. The
mid-1980s, coinciding with the Latina literary boom of 1985, were
therefore crucial for Moragas career. In her particular case, she veers
toward theater and dramatic writing. Even though she always consid-

ers her personal essays and poems as creative writing, theater stresses
invention even more. Her training as a playwright in the feminist
tradition gives way to her first full theatrical production, the realistic
Shadow of a Man.
Originally developed through INTAR in 1985, Shadow was pro-
duced for the first time in San Francisco in 1990 by Brava! For Women
in the Arts and the Eureka Theater Company, and was directed by
Mara Irene Forns (Moraga, Shadow 40). According to Moraga, I
wanted to write a family play because I was responding to the Chicano
intellectual communitys notion that somehow lesbian and gay people
werent concerned with the family (Greene 321).
Set in the kitchen of a 1969 Chicano home, the play focuses on
specific problems faced by Chicano families domestic violence,
generation gaps, religion, and sexuality from a female perspective.
Her focus on the institution of family raises issues that are similar
to those in Giving Up the Ghost, the questions of prisons/politics/
sex (Moraga, Giving 6). However, in Shadow Moraga follows the
parameters of the family play in the tradition of realistic theater by
American female playwrights.
The next two plays, Heroes and Saints and Watsonville: Some Place
Not Here, are both based on real events. Heroes and Saints denounces
the tragic situation of working-class Latin@s who are suffering from
pesticide poisoning by working, living, and consuming contaminated
water in the valleys of Central California. Seventeen-year-old Cerezita,
the main character in the play, was born as only a head due to her
mothers exposure to the pesticides. Inspired by a real case of mal-
formation, the character is modeled after Belarmino, also a character
who is a head in Luis Valdezs The Shrunken Head of Pancho Villa,
first performed in 1964 and one of the foundational texts of Teatro
Campesino. By creating Cerezita, Cherre Moraga is concerned with
reinventing an already existing Chican@ literary figure represented by
Teatro Campesino, as I will explain later.
Watsonville is the theatrical rendering of three remarkable events
for the Latino communities in Watsonville, California: the cannery
workers strike, the earthquake, and the apparition of the Virgin

of Guadalupe to one of the cannery workers some time later. Both

Heroes and Watsonville include visions and political speeches that go
beyond a realistic style and, according to Moraga, reflect an inter-
nal spiritual world in a play thats being moved by external action
(Greene 322). She identifies these two plays as marking a turning
point in her career as a dramatist that implies transcending the duali-
ties internal/external, and imagistic/realistic.10

When asked about her evolution from the private to the public sphere
in her plays, Moraga pointed out how she is going back to the most
intimate in The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea.11 Furthermore,
she considered The Hungry Woman as the play where she fully
achieved the fusion of personal thought and dramatic representation;
that is, the convergence of theory and creation. Reflecting upon the
long process of creating the play, she explained how, most of the time,
she found herself writing the play and her essays at the same time, and
how the contents and motivations for both kinds of texts merged as
she developed her ideas:
Sometimes I dont know if these investigations [on the myth of Medea]

will become essays or plays. A lot of times Im writing them simultane-
ously. Im working out the problem on the page in an essay and trying
to work it out through character in the play. (Greene 323)
Again, Moraga insists on the simultaneity of thought and art in her

writings, hinting at the intimate connection that exists between her
own feminist I in poetry and essays and the voices of the charac-
ters in her plays. The processional of female voices found in her plays
account for her polycentric vision of the Chicana. Let us focus now
on how she develops this particular vision through her revisionist
approach to Teatro Campesino.
Moragas Visionary Characters

Moraga defines the protagonists of her plays as visionary charac-
ters, and Medea in The Hungry Woman is, according to her, one
of the strongest ones. Moragas Medea is a polycentric, monstrous
embodied representation of an abstract collective entity. Her Medea
encapsulates different possible representations or mythopoetical selves.
Besides the references in the titlethe Hungry Woman, Medea, and
La Lloronathere are resonances with other well-known myths of
the Chicana female pantheon mainly Coyolxauhqui, La Malinche,
and the Virgin of Guadalupe.12

Elements of the legend of La Llorona were already present in

Moragas first two plays. Corky/Marisa and Lupe were characters that
could see more than other people in Giving and Shadow. However,
the link between La Llorona and the Greek myth of Medea is new in
Moragas production and hints at an expansion of her understanding
of the Chicana female pantheon, which seems to be linked to female
myths or stories coming from the European tradition. What interests

Moraga about the myth of Medea is the theme of betrayal, as well as
its connections with other representations of women as traitors that
are closer to herthat is, the other myths already mentioned. In the
interviews, she declares that, after rereading Euripidess play Medea,
her question was always Why would a woman really kill her child?
This is the problem that becomes the main motivation and subject
of investigation in her play.
With the figuration of the Chicana as the Hungry Woman, Moraga
explores one of the representations of Tonantzin as always craving for
food, with mouths in her wrists, elbows, knees, and ankles. In the
published version of the text, Moraga refers to the myth as retold
by John Bierhorst. The spirits decide that Tonantzin cannot live in
their world. They think that, if they send her underwater, she will
stop being hungry. Quetzalcatl and Texcatlipoca drag her into the
waters and, when they realize that she floats, they become snakes and
strangle her until her body is dismembered. The Hungry Woman is
a creation myth. From each body part emerges an element of nature.
However, her mouths keep craving for food. Sometimes their laments
can be heard close to water sources, just as La Lloronas. The charac-
ter of Medea is a new figuration of a dangerous beast.
The Hungry Woman includes a turbulent relationship between
Medea and Luna that immediately reminds the reader of the affair
between Marisa and Amalia in Giving. The play is set in an imaginary
Blade Runner-esque future (Moraga, Hungry 6), after a war that
has created the nation of Aztln in the North American southwest.
Read in connection with the myth of the Hungry Woman, Medea has
been banished from Aztln by the leading male spirits who decided
that her cravings (feminist and homoerotic) were not acceptable. She
lives in Phoenix, which is now a postwar border town in ruins, with
her lover Luna and her only son Chac-Mool. When her ex-husband
Jasn demands his custody, Medea kills Chac-Mool to prevent him
from traveling to Aztln and becoming assimilated in its heterosexist
and homophobic society.13
Moraga has talked extensively about the play and from her words,
we imply that she considers it as the culmination of her career.14 The

Hungry Woman touches her personally and very deeply, since it was
developed in part during the time that Moraga decided to be a mother
and was pregnant. The play offers clear connections with her autobio-
graphical account of her pregnancy in Waiting in the Wings, and with
her essay Looking for the Insatiable Woman. The hunger of the
Hungry Woman represents a queer-Chicana/atravesado craving for
knowledge and power that is perceived as monstruous and danger-

ous. Moragas play, as well as her writings as a whole, investigates the
effective use of this hunger and its emancipating possibilities as part
of radical Chicana poetics.
In my view, the complexity of The Hungry Woman needs to be
untangled by studying the play in connection with her whole produc-
tion, that is, by considering the fusion of art and theory in Moragas
works. The character of Medea shows the accumulation of different
stories coming together to construct a character that embodies on
stage a polycentric mythopoetical self. The interconnections among
myths are evident to an audience that has knowledge of Aztec and
Mesoamerican cultures, but become subtle and difficult to grasp for
those who do not share this knowledge. Moreover, these intersec-
tions can be fully appreciated only by those who are familiar with
Moragas works. Here, by means of her particular style of blending
social protest and the mythopoetic, Moragas theater runs the risk of
being too abstract and hermetic in the same way as Anzalda may be
in Borderlands and her later writings. That is why, I contend, Moraga
decided to connect the Hungry Woman with a better-known classical
myth like Medea. This connection accounts for Moragas desire to
reach wider audiences and her ambitions as an educational reformer.
However, she still had to explain this play more than any other in her
essays and interviews.
Medea is, according to Moraga, one of the visionary charac-
ters that are developed in her plays, together with Corky/Marisa,
Lupe, Cerezita, and Sonora. These characters are beyond-the-human
figurations of the ethnoracialized and sexualized Chicana. Visionary
characters appear in opposition to the less-than-human characteriza-
tion of Chicanas and women of color during history.
In a sense, all of these characters are Moragas alter egos. For
example, Corky was conceived from a voice that talked to Moraga
in her journals: The kind of girl I would have liked to be if I had
had the guts (Greene 317). Lupe in Shadow is an adolescent whose
lesbian sexual awakening is precluded by the importance of the tra-
ditional structure of the Mexican American family, a central aspect
in Moragas personal life as noted in her autobiographical essays. Just

as her thought fuses with her dramatic writing, Moragas visionary

characters merge with the feminist I that theorizes and agitates
through her essays. The dangerous beasts in Moraga are craving for
power and knowledge from marginalized positions. They are vision-
ary, sharing what Anzalda calls facultad. They are beyond human.
In fact, they account for the feminist theoretical subject in her plays.
Theater and performance are for Moraga the ideal media not only

to preserve embodiment but also because they provide an arena in
which to reformulate Chicanismo; the character of Cerezitalittle
Cherre, or one of Moragas little people, if we follow archetypal
psychology (see Juncture )in Heroes and Saints is an example.
Cerezita as a Chicana Artist

Moraga describes Cerezita as one of the most powerful visionary
characters in her plays. Being a bodiless head, Cerezita is, in the
opening scene, immediately identified as a mythopoetical persona
beyond the human, awesome and striking in the light (Moraga,
Heroes 92). She orchestrates a ritualistic metatheatrical performance
that involves the crucifixion of the corpses of children in the poisoned
fields of the village. The dumbshow reveals to the audience the cen-
tral mystery that is happening in McLaughlin, an imaginary village
in central California. Every time a child dies in the community, his or
her corpse appears crucified in the fields:
Scene One
At rise in the distance, a group of children wearing calavera masks enters
the grape vineyard. They carry a small, child-size cross which they erect
quickly and exit, leaving its stark silhouette image against the dawns
light. The barely distinguishable figure of a small child hangs from it.
The childs hair and thin clothing flap in the wind. Moment pass. The
wind subsides. The sound of squeaking wheels and a low mechanical hum
interrupt the silence. CEREZITA enters in shadow. She is transfixed by
the image of the crucifixion. The sun suddenly explodes out in the hori-
zon, bathing both the child and CEREZITA. CEREZITA is awesome
and striking in the light. The crucified child glows, Christlike. The sound
of a low-flying helicopter invades the silence. Its shadow passes over the
fields. Black out. (Moraga, Heroes 92)
Heroes and Saints was inspired by a documentary video produced

by the United Farm Workers (UFW) to publicize and denounce the
pesticide poisoning that affected field workers of central California in
the 1980s. The 13-minute UFW video, titled No Grapes!, interviews

victims, protestors, celebrities, doctors, and administrators. Cesar

Chavez closes, it promoting the boycott. Out of the three main
areas affectedFowler, Earlimart, and McFarlandMoraga chose
McFarland and changed its name to the fictional McLaughlin.
The initial scene is influenced by docudrama, applying documen-
tary techniques in theatrical performance. The image of the helicop-
ter watching the fields is reminiscent of the beginnings of the UFW

video, where a black airplane fumigates the fields, resembling an air
bombing. It is repeated as a leitmotif in both the video and the play.
The video shows specific cases of pesticide poisoning that have caused
cancer in farm workers and their families. It features three cases of
children who were born with serious malformations after their moth-
ers were exposed to the chemicals. In creating Cerezita, Moraga was
inspired by one of these cases, a five-year-old Mexican American boy
who was born without arms or legs. His mother was working in the
fields until her eighth month of pregnancy. In the documentary, the
child is shown in a rocking horse mounted on a wooden piece and
adapted to his disability, similar to the raite or electric wheelchair
that Cerezita uses to move on stage (Moraga, Heroes 90).
Two elements have been highlighted by critics regarding the char-
acter of Cerezita. On the one hand, she is considered as an allegorical,
spiritual, and mythical representation of the Chicana. Symbolically,
the Chicana body, both individual and collective, has been neglected
and dismembered throughout history. The play emphasizes Cerezitas
desire to have a body, both literally and figuratively. Her sexual fanta-
sies about feeling her arms and legs are linked to her wish to reunite
the collective body of Chican@s and take them to the streets and
fields to protest against the poisoning of their people. Cerezita is, in
this sense, also a semblance of Coyolxauhqui.
On the other hand, as noted earlier, Cerezita is reminiscent of
Belarmino, the character who is also a head in The Shrunken Head
of Pancho Villa (first performed in 1964), the first full-length play
written by Luis Valdez.15 Just as Heroes, Valdezs play focuses on
the dilemmas faced by Chicano families, as well as the revolutionary
desires of Chicanos. Hunger is symbolic for a desire for social justice
in both plays.
In the context of my analysis, both approaches to the playthe
feminist and the literaryare inseparable. Two questions arise: What
is the difference between Cerezita and other visionary characters in
Moragas plays? How does the inclusion of the literary referent work,
and what are the implications in the context of Moragas theory in
the flesh and the construction of her fictional world?

In Heroes, Cerezita is a composite of diosas, including Coyolxauh-

qui, the Virgin of Guadalupe and, to a lesser extent, the Hungry
Woman. Coyolxauhqui is a central mythical referent to understand
the body/text metaphor of dismembering and re-membering. But
even more relevant is Cerezitas final transformation into the Virgin
of Guadalupe in the final scene. The young disabled Chicana, aided
by the village kids and Padre Juan, is transformed into Guadalupe

and taken to the fields in a powerful performance of spiritual and
political implications. Commenting on the play, Moraga points out
how Cerezita differs from Medea in The Hungry Woman. In con-
trast to Medea, she lacks the destructive aspects of the female psyche,
the destructive Coatlicue aspect (Greene 325). Her words imply
that Cerezita represents the benevolent side of the Chicana, that is,
the ideal figuration of the Chicana leader: . . . unlike Medea, shes
[Cerezitas] all kindness and compassion. She is why Ive always
believe ideally in a woman-of-color feminism: that if youve walked
the oppression, then you have great compassion (Greene 331).
It is clear then that Moraga explores darker, destructive sides of the
female psyche in The Hungry Woman by studying the act of betrayal
that is universally attributed to women through myths and legends
like Medea, La Llorona, and La Malinche. In Heroes, Cerezita is a
visionary character that invokes the compassionate side of women as
an essential aspect of Chican@ activism. It is in this sense it is impor-
tant to note that Cerezita is counterpoised to the realistic character of
Amparo, who represents the Chicana grassroots activist in the play.
Amparo is partially modeled after Marta Salinas, one of the real
organizers in McFarland. Most importantly, the character also pays
homage to Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the UFW. In the Authors
Notes, Moraga explains that she was inspired by the episode in
which Huerta was beaten by police during a press conference in
San Francisco in 1988 (Moraga, Heroes 89). The episode is recre-
ated in the play as a metatheatrical performance in which Amparo
is knocked down by a policeman during a demonstration organized
by the Mothers and Friends of McLaughlin in Sacramento (132).
The scene is reenacted by Cerezita at the end of the play. She orga-
nizes a parade that finishes in the vineyards, where she publicly hangs
the corpse of Yolandas baby from a crucifix. Cerezita gets killed by
machine gun fire, while Amparo gets brutally beaten. Both scenes
end with the PROTESTORS and EL PUEBLO screaming
Asesinos! Asesinos! Asesinos! (133, 149).
There are two main speeches or political monologues in the
playone by Amparo, and one by Cerezita during the final parade,

once she has been transformed into the Virgin of Guadalupe and is
ready to sacrifice her life. Ironically, the realistic Amparo is a role
model for the fictional, beyond-the-human Cerezita, while Cerezita
wants to resemble Amparo. The message is for the new generations
of Chican@s to look for inspiration in the accomplishments of the
veterana leaders of the Movement. Additionally, Chicana feminists
need to conjugate the destructive and the compassionate aspects that

Medea and Cerezita represent symbolically in Moragas plays.
In relation to Moragas theory in the flesh, as well as her con-
struction of a theoretical I in her works, Cerezita becomes a feminist
controlling agent. This crucial element differentiates her from other
visionary characters. Cerezita is the mastermind behind the metathe-
atrical performance that constitutes the central mystery of the play.
Cerezitas compassion still makes her dangerous in the eyes of others.
She is the one who is secretly hanging the corpses of the dead children
from crucifixes in the vineyards, and the play describes the process from
the secret to the public performance of this ritualistic revolutionary act.
This process equals the transformation of the audience from passive
spectators of the initial dumbshow, or the cinematic broadcasting of
the protests, to their active involvement at the end of the play.16
The process of collective transformation is also observed in
Cerezita herself, from her initial imprisonment to her coming out to
the streets, from observant behind the curtains of her window to her
participation and final sacrifice for the community. During this pro-
cess, Cerezita observes what is going on through the window, listens
to Amparos speech on the streets, or to the radio, and reads Rosario
Castellanos, Federico Garca Lorca, liberation theology treatises, and
anatomy books. In her preparation for action, she learns about the
interaction of class, race, gender, and sexuality issues for which these
authors and readings are best known. Reading anatomy books, she
fantasizes about having a body and investigates into how to potentiate
the use of the parts that she possesses for both physical and political
ends. It is not surprising, for example, that when Padre Juan looks up
in the dictionary the definition of the word tongue, Cerezita recites
the different entries by heart (1089).
Cerezitas conversation with Padre Juan about her tongue has
strong implications in Moragas poetics. Public speech is, together
with writing, another essential tool for radical Chicanas. For Cerezita,
her tongue and her imagination are all she has to survive:
Cerezita: [ . . . ] Give me a break, Padre. All Ive got is this imagination.

Juan: Yes . . .

Cerezita: And a tongue.

Juan: A tongue?
Cerezita: Yeah, and mines got the best definition I bet in the world,
unless theres some other vegetable heads like me who survived
this valley. Think about it, Padre. Imagine if your tongue and
teeth and chin had to do the job of your hands . . . you know, (She
demonstrates.) turning pages, picking up stuff, scratching an itch,
pointing. I mean your tongue alone would have to have some very

serious definition. For me . . . well, its my most faithful organ. Look
it up. (She sticks out her tongue, pointing to the dictionary on the
shelf.) (Moraga, Heroes 1078)
In the language of the play, tongue connects not only with the
freedom and ability to speakthe gift of tongues (Heroes 108)
but also with sexual desiretongues of fire (Heroes 141). Following
her theory in the flesh, Moraga establishes a complex interrela-
tion between writing, performing, the erotic, and the political. The
play explores, according to Yarbro-Bejarano, the erotic as a poten-
tial force in the struggle for justice (Loving 74). This aspect is evi-
dent in Cerezitas sexual encounter with Padre Juan. She has sexual
desire, but it is repressed by her bodilessness. Her longings for a body
with which to experience full sexual pleasure involve the political, the
sexual, and also the religious. Their sexual encounter is unsuccessful
and Padre Juan escapes after having an orgasm. He even tries to leave
town, but he finally returns to Cerezita to follow up with her plans for
action. At this point, Cerezita explains the nature of her desire toward
him, which combines the political and the sexual, in contrast with his
repressed sexuality due to his vow of chastity:
Juan: It shouldnt have happened.

Cerezita: Stop, Juan.
Juan: Im a priest, Cere. Im not free. My body is not my own.
Cerezita: It wasnt your body I wanted. It was mine. All I wanted
was for you to make me feel like I had a body because, the fact is, I
dont. I was denied one. But for a few minutes, a few minutes before
you started thinking, I felt myself full of fine flesh filled to the
bones in my toes . . . I miss myself. Is that so hard to understand?
Juan: No.
Cerezita: And Im sick of all this goddamn dying. If I had your arms
and legs, if I had your dick for chrissake, you know what Id do? Id
burn this motherless town down and all the poisoned fields around
it. Id give healthy babies to each and every childless woman who
wanted one and Id even stick around to watch those babies grow
up! . . . Youre a waste of a body. (Moraga, Heroes 144)

Unlike other visionary characters in Moragas plays, Cerezitas goes

through a learning process to become a Chicana leader. Her hunger for
knowledge and power is that of the Hungry Woman. In this regard,
she becomes a figuration of the Chicana activist in a way that is similar
to Foucaults specific intellectual; that is, in a constant dissent and
self-dissent in order not to ever consent to being completely com-
fortable with ones own presuppositions (448). However, and here

is when Moraga disidentifies with Foucault, Cerezita, as a figuration
of the Chicana intellectual, has to come to terms with her body and
her desires. It is not only about treating ones body as a work of art,
as Foucault claims, but also about considering your body as a work
of art that offers a set of tools for potential emancipation. She has to
start with the individual self and look for the tools that better adapt to
her bodily/activist needs that is, her tongue in order to establish
a dialogue with other voices and to develop a political agenda at the
service of the community that respects internal diversity. Cerezitas
relationship with Padre Juan, for example, is turbulent, to say the
least, but they manage to respect each other and work together to
organize the final act of sacrifice for the community.
Paraphrasing Moragas definition of the Chicana artist as a revo-
lutionary body that reads and writes (Loving 187), Cerezita is the
figuration of the Chicana activist as a revolutionary head that reads.
She is another semblance of the dangerous beast or the inside-outsider
Chicana intellectual. She cannot write, but manages to act out per-
formances at the service of the community. As a performance artist
whose speech capabilities are her most precious tools, Cerezita reflects
Moragas own voice, merging with the authorial I in her essays, and
accounting for a new powerful figuration of the Chicana.
In Dialogue with Teatro Campesino

Before concluding, I would not like to overlook Moragas revision-
ist agenda, an issue largely addressed by critics. Theater is the ideal
medium for Moraga to construct her mythopoetical figurations of
the Chicana. In the process, Moraga undertakes a revision of Teatro
Campesinos version of Chicanismo that, if we paraphrase one of her
tenets, keeps its radical naming but expands it to meet a broader
and wiser revolution, that of the queer Aztln (Moraga, Last
150). Cerezita is a fictional character, inspired by the character of
Belarmino in Shrunken. Belarmino is also a head, and remains hidden
by his mother at home, just like Cerezitas is initially hidden como
algo cochino by her father (Heroes 103). At the end of Valdezs play,

however, Belarmino does not come out of the house, but desires to
join the headless body of his brother. This action would symbolically
reunite the decapitated body of the Chicano people and the revo-
lutionary head, since Belarmino believes to be the head of Pancho
Villa. Jorge Huerta explains the differences between Moragas play
and Valdezs Shrunken, which was written almost 30 years earlier:

Both plays contain a bodiless character as central metaphor, but one
is seen through the eyes of a Chicano student activist writing in the
early 1960s and the other through the eyes of a nationally known
Chicana author and activist writing in the early 1990s. The two plays
are separated by a generation in time, by gender and by his-story.
(Huerta 64)
As analyzed by Huerta and Yarbro-Bejarano from different

points of view, the intertextuality between the two plays accounts
for Moragas feminist rereading of Valdezs exploration of the prob-
lems faced by Chicano families of the 1960s. In Shrunken, one of the
brothers in the family, Domingo, is the vendido who transforms
into Mr. Sunday after rejecting his Chicano origins. To express his
acculturation on stage, he might wear white makeup on one side
of his face and brown on the other (Huerta 60). Basing his state-
ment on a keynote address by Luis Valdez, Huerta contends that the
play was Valdezs visceral response to the loss of a brother to total
acculturation through denial of his Mexican roots and the loss of
cultural identity through brainwashing / decapitation (Huerta 60).
Valdez focused on acculturation, while Moraga expands her study
by including issues that are important for Chicanos in the late 1980s
such as environmental racism, homophobia, and AIDS. However,
Moragas dialogue with Teatro Campesino goes beyond the relation-
ship between her play and Valdezs. She is in dialogue with the perfor-
mance theory and philosophy of life of Teatro Campesino members,
the Theater of the Sphere.
As noted above, Moraga understands myths in a way that is similar
to the Theater of the Spheres. Myths are stories that express potential
realizations for the subject. Furthermore, Moraga creates Cerezita as
a Spherical Actor who has learnt to perform for the community. Her
sphericality refers to a will power that all of Moragas vision-
ary characters possess, and that Broyles-Gonz lez describes as the
goal for the Spherical Actor in order to create consciousness (Broyles-
Gonz lez 107). Just as the Spherical Actor, as explained by Teatro
Campesino member Olivia Chumacero, Cerezita must learn to move

with [her] body, mind and heart simultaneously. [She] must learn to
move as a sphere (Cit. in Broyles-Gonz lez 97).
Being a bodiless character, Moraga wants to place at the center of
the stage the difficulties that Chicanas experience in achieving the
goals of this philosophy of life as marginalized individuals whose bod-
ies have been denied and whose voices have been silenced throughout
history. In addition, Cerezitas sphericality also accounts for the inter-

section of body, self, community, nature, and the supernatural that,
in the field of theater, the Spherical Actor tries to establish in per-
manent exchange with three other Spheres: audience, society, nature
and cosmos (Broyles-Gonz lez 108).
In Moragas evolution as a playwright, Heroes not only transcends
the dichotomy imagistic/realistic, but also incorporates the mythi-
cal and the literary, situating her theater within the Chicano liter-
ary and theatrical tradition. Her revisionist project is linked with her
overall metapoetical and self-reflective discourse on how to preserve
and expand the story Chicana, and how to become a spokesperson
and education reformer from the vantage point of the revolutionary
Chicana artist.
Conclusion
In Moragas overall production, the simultaneity of thought and liter-
ary creation is always the way to dissent, and to work out a problem.
The problem has to do with social justice. Her message is educational,
and offers a point of entry into issues of accountability, discrimination,
and tolerance and appreciation of difference. However, the medium
she chooses as the most effective is creativity and the imagination; it
is, most of all, artistic, but nonetheless a language of war.
As we saw, Moragas notion of the Chicana intellectual expands
Gramscis concept of the organic intellectual and Foucaults spe-
cific intellectual by placing the individual self and the materiality of
the body as points of departure. Personally, for example, she consid-
ers same-sex desire as the origin of her thought: My lesbianism is
the avenue through which I have learned the most about silence and
oppression, and it continues to be the most tactile reminder to me that
we are not free human beings (Loving 44). In her works, specificity
implies taking sexual identity, and more particularly the emphasis on
the materiality of hunger/sexual desire, as points of entry into memory,
history, and myth.17 A second stage involves teaching the oppressed
in their own language and with their own tools (Loving 190), raising
awareness about our capacity of dissenting with our owns particular

culture, and about our responsibility to reinvent those languages and

tools that we have inherited. A third stage would encompass an edu-
cational reform that, even thought it is centered in the United States,
gradually becomes more of a global concern in Moragas later works.
Moragas continuous search for a method through writing and perfor-
mance is not always conciliatory, but is always militant, using weapons
that better adapt to our needs and better serve our way of loving

in a contingent, situational way. In her case, and for the Chicana
writer, constructing a language of war is essential, both literally and
metaphorically:
I began my first book, Loving in the War Years, in 1977. It was con-
ceived in silence and written against absence. To experience ones writ-
ing as an act against is to say what it means to write within the context
of movement struggle; our words, the polemics of a people, become
the language of war. (Moraga, Xicana Codex 175; emphasis in the
original)
Her reflections in 2009 reveal that conjugating the destructive

Medeaand the compassionateCerezitaimplies that Chicana
artists continue to construct a guerilla warfare discourse of sur-
vival and perpetual self-reinvention. It is the same guerrilla warfare
that she advocated in This Bridge. However, her works, as noted in
my study, continually enrich the definition of Chicana and Chicano,
broaden the revolution, and leave it open to future transformations
both at the local and the global levels.

Juncture
Collective Creativity

I n her elegiac essay The Salt That Cures: Remembering Gloria
Anzalda, Moraga writes openly about her relationship with
Anzalda and elaborates on their main points of contention. She
reflects upon abstraction and inclusiveness, and about their poten-
tially negative repercussionsfutility and appropriation. They all
have to do with the fissure between vision and lived reality, which
is the stuff of Chicana writings (Xicana Codex 1212). But most
importantly, Moraga reflects about both the power and the chal-
lenges of writing the story Chicana as a collective endeavor. The key is
in her closing poem, written by Moraga as if Anzalda spoke it to her:
Would it were that our stories / Were the waters of the river . . . / Would
it were the salt that cures (Moraga, Xicana Codex 130; emphasis in
the original).
In The Salt That Cures, Moraga provides a summary of her own
positioning as a radical Chicana feminist; and at the same time, by
establishing an imagined dialogue with the late Anzalda, she elu-
cidates Anzaldas contribution to the story Chicana, to border sub-
jects, and to contemporary thought.
In the fields of Chicana and Latina studies, scholars were all eager
to know why Moraga and Anzaldas relationship had such an abrupt
end immediately after the publication of This Bridge in 1981. Was it
just that they were burned-out after editing the anthology, or was
there something else? When I consulted The Anzaldas Papers at the
University of Texas, Austin, some of the materials were restricted to
the public. However, I could find a personal note among the papers
where Anzalda called Moraga chorizito, and invited her to join
her after a public meeting. In academia there have been rumors about
them being lovers, and about their breaking up after This Bridge,

but nobody would talk openly about it. Furthermore, I noticed that
Anzalda included Moraga in the acknowledgments section of her
October 1986 draft of Borderlands, but she later erased her name in
the published version. What happened?
In the 1998 anthology Living Chicana Theory, Deena Gonz lez
urged Chicana scholars to speak out their secrets trusting,

that out there listening may be some thinkers and artists who can
translate these kind of remarks into a new political/activist agenda and
because Chicanasone of the most underrepresented groups in the
professoriatewill recognize the values of new languages and a better
discourse community. (Gonz lez, Speaking Secrets 46)
In her works and interviews, Anzalda was the most adamant sup-
porter of disclosing the most intimate experiencesphysical, psychic,
and intellectualas part of both the construction of her personal story
and the construction of the story Chicana. However, I did not find
references in her works to her personal relationship with Moraga or the
reasons for their estrangement after This Bridge. Why? Was this all just
a matter of rumors or chismes (gossip)? Would these silences, nonethe-
less, have a significant impact on the interpretation of their works?
I did not ask Moraga or any of the Chicana feminists about these
chismes. After reading most of their writings, I understood and
respected their silence and discretion. I also thought that that kind of
question was not pertinent, especially coming from me, a scholar per-
ceived as an outsider. However, it always struck me that both Moraga
and Anzalda were so private about their relationship while they were
so resolute about disclosing their most personal information, some-
times even treating chismes as part of their polticas. Isnt speaking
secrets a potential healing strategy for living Chicana theory?
Moragas elegy sheds some light to these unanswered questions.
She discloses a critical event that occurred three years after their com-
pletion of This Bridge and thus their estrangement from each other.
After this gap of strained silence, Anzalda went to Moragas home
in Brooklyn in 1984 to accuse her of plagiarism. Moraga never knew
what exactly Anzalda was referring to. As she acknowledges in her
essay, they shared so many ideas, and at some point were so close that
it would be impossible to argue whether some of their texts plagiarize
each other:
I was stunned. She couldnt possibly mean the words coming out of
her mouth. What was it I had taken? A stolen line, concept, image? She

C O L L E C T I V E C R E AT I V I T Y 75
would not say. We had worked so closely for so many years, I implored her,
surely some influences were unconsciously exchanged. (Moraga, Xicana
Codex 117; emphasis in the original)
In 1983, Moraga had published Loving in the War Years, and

coedited Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, with Alma Gmez and Mariana
Romo-Carmona. Moraga hypothesizes that the fact that Loving had

preceded Borderlands as a single-authored work could have been a rea-
son for Anzalda to think that she had appropriated some of her orig-
inal ideas. Moraga continues recalling the episode and concludes:
In the days that followed, I would obsessively scan hundreds of pages

of my own published writings for evidence of the theft of which I
had been accused. It was impossible to recuperate; for what I came to
understand years later was that something much more profound than
an unconsciously assimilated line of text had separated us. At times, I
believe (and more strongly since her passing) that the measure of the
distance between Gloria and me reflected the depth of our capacity to
really see each other. Such exposure is not always welcomed. (Xicana
Codex 117)
A comparison of Anzaldas and Moragas works easily reveals

how profoundly close their interests are, even after their disquiet-
ing separation. They coincide in so many of their visions and ideas
about writing. They both visualize Coyolxauhqui as a figuration of
the Chicana artist in the 1990s. They both define a new tribal-
ism, based on an indigenist approach to oppositional consciousness.
But they nonetheless put emphasis on different aspects of the same
myths and the metaphors, and add their own nuances to a particular
Chicana poetics or radical feminist style of consciousness. Moraga
herself makes the observation:
As I review the posthumous collection of Glorias writings, I see

how much pol tica Gloria and I did share, including what Gloria
referred to as spiritual activism and our faith in art as a kind of
medicine . . . Beneath our distinct languages is a thread of continuity of
what it means to be Xicana in this continent, from la Prieta to La
Gera. (Xicana Codex 126)
As mentioned in the previous chapter, Moraga, being concerned

about being too abstract, chose theater and performance to enact
embodied situational practices that are most effective in addressing
the specificity of her oppression. And being concerned about being

colonized and tokenized in academia, she accentuated her indi-

genism and advocated for reserving certain activist tools, such as fem-
inist anthologies, only for women. In the Salt That Cures, one of
the issues that Moraga argues is that the dialogue among women of
color is necessary before a dialogue with others, and that anthologies
such as This Bridge should remain a free space for womens dialogues
and exchange of ideas.

Moraga is more concerned with controlling her writings and her
ideas, while Anzalda understands publishing as a separation from,
and even a disidentification with, the text. For that reason, Anzalda
was obsessed with revisions, and was such a perfectionist. But her
accusations of plagiarism point out a relevant fact. Dangerous beasts
poetics also involves the dangers of conceiving a collective project and
dealing with the complex vicissitudes of coalition politics.
Defining the seventh stage in the path of conocimiento, Anzalda
embraces collectivity and rejects the figure of the author as authority:
Theres no such thing as one leader. Were [nepantleras] all work-
ing it out together (Lara 489). In many other instances, Anzalda
insists on debunking the idea of authorship. One of the main meta-
phors that she uses to explain her role as a spokesperson for Chicanas
is that of being a pipeline:
I also feel that the author never existed because when I write, I write
from the raw material that I read, from the people that I come into
contact with, from the experiences that other people tell me about.
And I am sort of like this pipeline that gathers up material and synthe-
sizes it and puts it out so that its not me, a single author, but I belong
to a collectivity that is invisible, but its in my head when Im writing.
So I dont believe that the author ever existed, so how can the author
be dead? T sabes? (Torres 132)
Chicana feminist cultural production, as a polycentric but collec-

tive corpus of thought, seems to constantly invite us to argue that, if
we took the whole corpus of work of radical Chicanas and leave out
their names, we could read their work as that of one single author
and authoritarian entity following a traditional, conventional way
of reading a corpus of texts. They desacralize traditional notions of
authorship and force us to reinvent our readings. But where is, then,
the authority of the I? Since Marta Snchezs groundbreaking
study of Chicana poetry in the early 1980s, the emergence of the I
of the Chicana has been deemed a crucial step in the development
of Chicana poetics. Is the I just a political strategy, or is it a real

C O L L E C T I V E C R E AT I V I T Y 77
position of agency that is necessary to empower Chicanas and for the

story Chicana? These are capital questions for the Chicana artists that
I examine in this book.
Anzalda envisioned Chicana poetics as a collective interven-
tion, but she accused Moraga of plagiarism. Here is the greatest
irony: Anzalda accused Moraga of appropriation, which was some-
thing that, according to Moraga, Anzalda was promoting with her

abstractions. Their relationship deteriorated, but thanks to their dis-
agreements, both were capable of working out their positionings and
repositionings throughout their career. Their contention allowed for
making progress and for contributing to radical Chicana feminism
two different but interwoven styles of consciousness.
The fissure between vision and the lived reality, the stuff of
Chicana writings according to Moraga, is a fundamental challenge for
dangerous beasts poetics. Dealing with this stuff is necessary to be
able to cohabitate in todays world and to find love. Moraga states that
she and Anzalda were never lovers, but that Anzalda was in love
with Moraga, according to what her lifelong friend Randy Conner
told Moraga when the Tejana passed away. However, Moraga, in her
elegiac essay, discloses that she is in love with Anzalda, because her
essay is an act of love: love as a technology of emancipation in theo-
retical jargon, or simply as an unyielding source of strength for those
who are perceived as dangerous beasts? Probably both.
Love, as a manifestation of conocimiento emerges in acts of healing,
but there is no resolution, just the healing, according to Anzalda. In
her elegy for Anzalda, Moraga imagines that Anzalda is telling her,
and us, a crucial clue about their poetics: The salt that cures are
the stories that they would share and then would join with the earth.
The poem is written in the subjunctive, would it were that our sto-
ries . . . The salt that cures would be the movement of our stories
traversing through our heart until they reached the mother sea;
our stories as waters in a movement from inside our bodies into the
mother sea. Moragas poem fuses with Anzaldas imaginings. The
atravesado effect of the overlapping of their voices is similar to what
occurs when we approach polycentric figurations of the Chicana. But
a question remains: Can nos/otros tolerate the ambivalence, and the
contradictions?


Part II
(Re)Positionings


Juncture
Nepantlism

C elia Herrera Rodrguezs illustration Nepantlera (2011) offers
a powerful figuration of the Chicana artist as a modern-day
Coyolxauhqui. Her figuration of the Chicana intellectual as an
inhabitant of nepantla helps explain the continuous positioning and
repositioning that characterizes dangerous beasts poetics. The stra-
tegic placement of this drawing within Moragas essay collection A
Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness (2011) is part of Chicanas
transdisciplinary educational mission through the combination of art
and theories.
What is nepantla? In radical Chicana poetics, nepantla designates a
transitional and concurrent positioning. It has to do with movement
and becoming in both space and time. Since the 1990s, Chican@
studies scholars have used nepantla to name the transitional space
that is frequently inhabited by the border subject. Pat Moras geopo-
litical focus has remained common in Chican@ cultural production.
In her homonymous essay collection, she translates nepantla as the
land in the middle. By contrast, radical Chicanas use the term to
define an in-betweenness state that is not only geopolitical, but also
psychological. In this sense, nepantla usually describes situational
moments of identity crisis.
The evolution of Anzaldas thought provides a useful example.
What she calls nepantla in the 1990s is a rearticulation of her conceptu-
alization of the borderlands as an overarching metaphor and concept in
the 1980s. Anzaldas 1985 poem Encountering the Medusa offers
her earliest definition of a borderland state of blockage or frozen-
ness. Her starting point was, as I discussed in chapter 1, her encounter
with Medusa in the mirror. This encounter is symbolic for her recog-
nition of the mark of the beast in her. It provokes a block, a moment of
identity crisis that she explained as being in the borderlands.

Later on, in Anzaldas post-Borderlands thought, nepantla

becomes the term for an abstract, impossible state, virtual but never
fixed. It is a state that is defined by its movability and mutability.
It accounts for continuous becoming, a quest and a struggle, both
spiritual and physical, both at the individual and the collective levels.
Nepantla designates a transitional state that reminds us about the
provisionality and contingency of our acts in our search for transfor-

mation and spiritual activism:
Living in Nepantla, the overlapping space between different percep-

tions and belief systems, you are aware of the changeability of racial
gender, sexual, and other categories rendering the conventional label-
lings obsolete. (Anzalda, now let us shift 541)
AnaLouise Keating summarizes Anzaldas conceptualization of

nepantla by adding an emphasis on her role as an intellectual:
For Anzalda, nepantla represents temporal, spatial, psychic, and/or

intellectual point(s) of crisis. Nepantla occurs during the many transi-
tional stages of life and describes both identity-related issues and epis-
temological concerns. (Anzalda, Gloria 322)
For Moraga in A Xicana Codex, nepantla is that interstice

between both sites of consciousness. She is very close to Anzaldas
conceptualization. To be a nepantlera is to be able to see between
worlds (Moraga, Salt 127). In the fissure between vision and
lived reality, which is the stuff of Chicana writings according to
Moraga, nepantla is clearly a visionary concept that has to do with
psychological states and intuition; it is clearly closer to vision.
Herrera Rodrguezs Nepantlera is the seventh of nine illustrations
that serve as junctures in between Moragas essays in A Xicana Codex
(see figure J3.1). Her drawings are strategically located as transitions
between the essays, in the positions of nepantla. Each of them offers
a figuration of the Xicana with an X emphasizing, as Moraga does
throughout the book, an emerging poltica, especially among young
people, grounded in indigenous American beliefs and systems . . . The
X links us as Native people in diaspora (Xicana Codex xxi). The X is
not only the mark of difference and indigeneity, but also the mark of
the beast that stigmatizes the Xicana artist, as an ethnoracialized and
sexualized writing subject. Moraga, as many other radical Chicanas,
embraces the X as a sign of indigenist pride. Herrera Rodrguezs
monstrous figurations of the Xicana connect the essays as if they were

N E PA N T L I S M 83
Figure J3.1 Nepantlera, by Celia Herrera Rodr guez. Drawings from A Xicana
Codex of Changing Consciousness. 11 15 inches. Handprinted Screenprint on
Mohawk Birch Archival Paper. Printed by Dignidad Rebelde in Oakland, 2011.
body parts. They are the connecting tissue among Moragas writings,
becoming an integral part of the shaping of Moragas Xicana codex.
The statement is clear: art and theory must come together. The Xicana
codex cannot be shaped only by one kind of artistic representation.

The stuff of Xicana writing cannot be fully envisioned through a sin-

gle univocal or unilateral artistic representation.
Herrera Rodrguezs rendition of the Xicana artist follows the
dismembered visualization of Aztec diosa Coyolxauhqui as it is rep-
resented in the stone relief found in the Templo Mayor in Mexico
City. Adorned with common symbols in Aztec cosmology that
for the most part serve as junctures connecting her body parts,

Herrera Rodrguezs Nepantlera seems to be a half-re-membered
Coyolxauhqui. Her body parts are at different stages in the process of
being connected. Moreover, the skull that floats on her side appears
to be falling and talking to the nepantlera as Moragaa nepantlera
herselfestablishes a conversation with the dead. Nepantlera is stra-
tegically placed in between Moragas tribute to Audre Lorde and Pat
Barker, entitled A Poetry of Heroism, and her extraordinary elegy
to Gloria Anzalda, The Salt That Cures.
So in the eyes of the reader, the drawing reflects in so many intri-
cate ways a moment of transition in the process of re-membering and
conversing with the dead. Spiritually, the message is particularly pow-
erful, since Nepantlera is placed in between the elegies. The transi-
tional state of nepantla also represents the transformation from life
to the afterlife. This is the state that Moraga desires to achieve in
her conversations with the late Lorde, Barker, and Anzalda. The
nepantlera/Moraga seems to establish communication with the skull
as an emblem of those who inhabit the ms all.
In Anzaldas articulation of the seven stages of the path of
conocimiento, nepantla clearly designates the position that writers
and artists usually occupy in their practice of what Anzalda calls
spiritual activism the seventh and last stage. Nepantleras are, in
Anzaldas view, unique types of mediators. In Moragass miniessay
on modern-day Malinches, also included in A Xicana Codex, she
associates the nepantlera with another myth of the Chicana pan-
theon, Malinche, in a figuration of the Chicana as cultural translator
and mediator: Perhaps we [as Chicanas in academia] reside in that
in-between location as interpreters between worlds the remembered
and postmodern we, the Nepantleras of Anzaldas imaginings
(Xicana Codex 155). Nepantleras, as modern-day Malinches are
not traitors but translators, women who tread dangerously among
the enemy, driven by a vision of change that may only be intuitively
known (150).
Herrera Rodrguezs drawings in A Xicana Codex are just one
example of the processional of visual and textual polycentric figura-
tions with which Chicana artists insist on illustrating the effects of

N E PA N T L I S M 85
being in nepantla: having a facultad, or capacity to see beyond

surface phenomena; developing tolerance for contradictions and
ambiguities; the awareness of changeability and lack of closure; and
the capacity for self-reflection and repositioning. Nepantleras look
for alternative ways of thinking about identity and social justice, and
believe in the power of an aesthetic education that comes from the
body and the specificity of Chicana oppression. To educate viewers/

readers they strive to find ways to force them into action. One of
their main strategies is also making viewers aware of the educational
process itself, and of the dismemberments involved in any process of
transformation. The figuration of the Chicana as nepantlera shows us
how dangerous beasts poetics not only is about creativity and raising
consciousness, but also about appreciating the pedagogical responsi-
bilities involved in creating a poetics, as well as the role of the reader-
viewer.
This juncture essay, as each of Herrera Rodrguezs illustrations in
A Xicana Codex, serves as connecting tissue among elements in this
book. It also exemplifies a position of nepantla. In isolation, it may
count as a simple fragment. But in the process of shaping and reading
the book, it may serve as the glue that connects the chapters in the
process of re-membering radical Chicana poetics from a transitional
outside-insider position. It all depends on whether the reader is will-
ing to tolerate ambiguities and contradictions, and to participate in
the active process of re-membering, which is a process that involves
constant repositionings.


Chapter 3
The Nomadic Chicana Writer in Ana

Castillo and Emma Prez
F rom todays perspective, more than 30 years after the publication of

This Bridge, there is little doubt that Moraga and Anzalda have been
the trailblazers of radical Chicana feminism. Many atravesad@s and
women of color from multiple backgrounds within LGBTQ, Chicana/
Latina, and other diasporic and/or displaced communities have
embraced and disidentified with their art and theories and with their
search for a method of oppositional consciousness. They were able to
put the ideas of a collective into writing, and to use their publications
as tools for preservation and revolution. However, their leadership
not only was a result of conceiving the anthology, or being able to
publish their groundbreaking sole-authored books. It arose as a result
of complex political alliances among activists and intellectuals who
were acting simultaneouslymost of the time independentlyand
who were not restricted to one generation or region. In this regard,
their provisional alliance as coeditors of This Bridge is a clear example.
Born in the R o Grande Valley in Texas, Anzalda was ten years older
than Moraga, who was born in Whittier, California. They collabo-
rated intensely for several years to make This Bridge a reality, and then
they separated and continued their work as independent intellectuals
forming new alliances and developing new interests.
From now on in this book, I will focus on Chicana writers who have
followed up on the ongoing reimaginings of culture and thought pro-
moted by the women to women dialogues in This Bridge.1 But it is
important to note that, although the writers that I identify as the main
scribes of dangerous beasts poetics have collaborated in common proj-
ects more than once since the 1980s, their careers are simultaneous,
and not always synchronized. We have to remind ourselves constantly

that dangerous beasts poetics emerges out of dialogues and tensions

from different positionsa daily deciding/risking who it is we can
call an ally (Moraga and Anzalda l). Nevertheless, there is a constant
search for commonality and provisional consensus, despite the appar-
ent disidentifications that I am untangling throughout this book. By
zooming in on this group of writers, not as a generation but as a het-
erogeneous political coalition, and on their works as variations within a

common corpus of thought and artistic expressions, an essentialand
complexquestion is how this new paradigmwhat I call dangerous
beasts poeticsevolves as a communal endeavor. What I am doing is
not tracing an evolution or progressive development, but one contin-
gent act of map making. This is, I believe, an effective way to approach
collective interventions of such political and aesthetic implications.
In this chapter, I propose a comparative analysis of two novels that
mark two symbolic moments in my cartography. Ten years separate
the publication of The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986) and Gulf Dreams
(1996). In many ways, both works are representative of two stages in
the consolidation of Chicana/Latina fiction. Mixquiahuala is one of
the most successful novels of the Latina publication boom in or around
1985. Published in 1986 by Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilinge, it was
soon reprinted by Anchor Books, Doubleday, in 1992. The novel pro-
vided Castillo access to the mainstream publishing industry, but at
the time of its publication in 1986, she was, in her own words, just
a self-taught and fairly unknown poet (Castillo, Yes, Dear Critic
159). As an activist, she had collaborated with other radical Chicanas
but had no background as a scholar in academia. Castillo wrote her
novel before finishing her graduate studies and before fully articulat-
ing her own intellectual positionsomething that she will later do
in Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma (1994), a revised
version of her PhD dissertation. By contrast, Emma Prez published
Gulf Dreams when she was a tenured professor. She wrote it as a the-
sis novella as she was elaborating her approach to the history of the
USMexico border in The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas
into History (1999). The novel was an effort to implement her own
theories as a feminist historian in the realm of fiction.
There is also a gap between Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams
regarding the shaping of dangerous beasts poetics. The Coatlicuan
1980s are years of emergence while the Coyolxauhquian 1990s are a
period of greater diversification and expansion. However, both novels
share many of the essential features that, as I said, are simultaneously
evolving. Both novels expose and reflect upon the constructedness of
Chicana feminist discourse. Mixquiahuala structured as a series of

NOMA DIC CHICANA W RIT ER 89
letters, and preceded with authorial directions on how to read the let-
ters is initially closer to actualization and performativity, while Gulf
Dreams a psychological first-person narrative by an anonymous she-
narrator accounts for one of the most complex theoretical attempts
to render Chicana feminist thought into fiction.
As my study will show, both Castillo and Prez are masters in
ambiguity and ambivalence. The role of readers, their collaboration

or resistance, is crucial. Deliberate ambiguities are designed to agitate
us into action. If we use Anzaldas words, Castillos and Prezs nar-
ratives place us in the transitional and concurrent state of nepantla,
and are engaging insofar as we feel the arrebato, or rapture, that may
initiate our path of conocimiento. This, I believe, has to do with
the democratic impulse that has propelled radical Chicana writers up
to the present. In this regard, dangerous beasts poetics is a communal
endeavor that must be led from the inside-outsider position of radical
Chicanas, but that also necessitates the outside-insider perspective of
their readers and allies.
Both Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams are about the emancipa-
tion of strong women, about the possibilities of re-placement in a
series of repetitive acts of traveling for women who have been dis-
placed and abused and have decided to deal with their marginalization
and oppression. Both are narrated from the perspective of a Chicana
writerTeresa in Mixquiahuala, and the she-narrator in Gulf Dreams
(I will call her She-N from now on as opposed to She-Y, her lover,
who is also anonymous).
Structurally, the narratives in both novels share three essential ele-
ments. First, gender oppression is the cause of conflict. Second, both
narrative voices emerge as critics/theorists of this conflict from a
Chicana writer vantage point. Their voices do not attempt to provide
definite answers. Their solution is to explore and construct their own
visions on desire as a way of empowerment. Third, both novels insist
on multiple open endings, and on inviting readers to look for solutions
on their own as long as they consider the value of commonality and
women bonding. I explore these three aspects as narrative strategies
that shape the construction of the Chicana theoretical writing subject
as nomadic and desiring in both works. Castillos and Prezs figu-
rations of the dangerous beast are more fictional than ever in these
novels. Higher fictionality is related to a nomadic condition both
literal/physical and psychological/metaphorical and to a focus on
constructing a discourse on Chicana desire.
My twist is to consider the voices of the narrators in both novels
as subjects in process and in movement; that is, to focus on their

itinerant condition. Drawing on Rosi Braidottis figuration of the

feminist as nomad, and on radical feminist configurations of desire,
I will explore how the voice of the Chicana writer emerges in these
novels as an ambulant subject in peculiar ways. Her movements in
space and time have to do with the exploration of what constitutes
desire from a radical Chicana perspective what Ellie Hernndez
calls the chronotope of desire. The nomadic quality of the writers/

narrators makes them fearful monsters, impossible (fictional) charac-
ters that resist representation or identification. In the constellation
of figurations or political fictions that shape dangerous beasts poet-
ics, nomadism and desire seem to be Castillos and Prezs primary
concerns. By studying them in a comparative way, I contend, we can
better appreciate their distinctive original contributions.
Confronting the Ghosts, or

When Did the Sadness Begin?
The failure of the main characters love affairs is a critical starting point
in both Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams. This failure in both novels
is symbolic of the collapse of traditional gender and ethnic configura-
tions. Neither Teresa nor She-N can achieve a felicitous development of
their subjectivities in love relationships either with men or women
under current gender norms, which promote and perpetuate violence
against mestiza and border women. Getting distance, in a process of
displacement and re-placement, is necessary for both protagonists. In
Letter 37 one of the key letters in MixquiahualaTeresa writes to
Alicia: I want to take my ghosts, Alicia, confront them face to face,
snarl at them, stick out my tongue, wiggle my fingers from the sides
of my head, nya-nya! (Mixquiahuala 124). In Teresas letters, the
ghosts appear in the guise of men as figurations of traditional het-
erosexist masculinity. Most of them are presented not only as abusive
but also as victims of traditional norms of heterosexism. Moreover,
Castillo highlights the disastrous impact of masculinist chauvinism
in relation to class status and class identity binationally, following a
comparative ethnographic approach.
By contrast, the sophistication and stylization that occurs in Gulf
Dreams are a result of Prezs experimentation with the thesis novella.
As in her scholarship, Prez argues for a Foucauldian genealogical
and archeological search of the reasons for an immense sadness. This
is the search that She-N undertakes as a writer of her own fragmented
narrative in the novel:

When I stared into cameras, I didnt laugh or clown as children do, so

unfamiliar to me how my cousins giggled with each other. My mother
framed photographs that captured the sadness, held it squarely like a
package with a time bomb that would not explode for years. Right
now, the sadness glared. There was one photograph. Not yet one-year-
old and I laughed openly and happily. Evidence of childhood. I won-
dered, when did the sadness begin? (Gulf Dreams 16)

Both works resonate with Moragas play Giving Up the Ghosts
(1986). The play explores in a fragmented and nonchronologi-
cal way the conflicting relationship between Corky/Marisa and
her lover Amalia. Corky and Marisa are two representations of the
same persona at two different stages in her development as a queer
Chicana. In the initial scene, they both set up the topicthe ques-
tion of prisons/politics/sex (Moraga, Giving 6), and the motif of
ghostsWhyd I hafta get into a situation where all my ghosts come
to visit? (7). Putting both novels in relation to Moragas play helps
us appreciate common similarities that place these authors as part of a
common poetics. First, gender violence provokes the arrebato in the
three works. The three explore the literal and symbolical implications
of rape and/or sexual assault for women. Second, women bonding
is vital to initiate the process of (self)reparation. It is the encounter
of the voices and the bodies of women that may activate the pro-
cess of healing. And third, there is a similar polycentric strategy. In
Mixquiahuala, Teresas voice creates Alicia in her letters; we never
have access to Alicias correspondence. In Gulf Dreams, She-N explic-
itly admits at some point that she is creating the rest of the characters
as she is composing the text. This polycentricity blurs the boundaries
among the fictional voices of women, making them one and many,
and (con)fusing them as if they were a chorus. This technique is more
easily captured in performance pieces like Moragas, which follows
the tradition of the choreopoem in feminist theater Moraga is heav-
ily influenced by Ntozake Shanges work.2 In Moragas play direc-
tion should reflect that each character knows, on an intuitive level,
the minds of the other character (Moraga, Giving 5). However, in
the case of fiction, this chorality blurs the distinction between the
voices of the characters, the narrator(s), and even the authorial voice
that gives us directions on how to read the letters in Mixquiahuala.
Teresa creates the narrative, and thus creates her becoming and her
objects of desire, including Alicia, her addressee. The ambiguity is
deliberate and, as I will discuss later, has to do with Castillos pro-
spective approach to Chicana desire and autonomy.

Furthermore, chorality tries to engage readers and make them

accomplices in both novels. In Mixquiahuala, readers may initially
identify with Alicia, the addressee of the letters. That is why critics
have emphasized the ethnographic component of the novel, and how
Teresa frequently explains Mexican culture to Alicia and, by exten-
sion, to the reader (Quintana). Similarly, in Gulf Dreams, what we
could call the choreonarrative emerges from She-Ns metapoetic

and melancholic digressions, when she declares that everything in her
text is made up. The narrative pieces unfold gradually and fragmented
as hallucinations or phantasizing moments. Again, this is something
I will come back to later when I discuss Prezs approach to memory
and Chicana desire.
Both Castillos and Prezs narrative fiction allow for a higher level
of textualization and for the incorporation of the choral voice of the
Chicana writing subject as a polycentric controlling agent of the nar-
rative. In this regard, what is relevant is Teresas and She-Ns poten-
tially liberatory transformation throughout their narrative quests;
that is, the possibilities of healing through the process of composing
their respective letters and fragments.
The titles give us important clues with regard to the differences
between the novels. The motif of traveling is essential for Teresa to
explore her roots in Mexico. After visiting the Toltec ruins of Tula
in Mixquiahuala, Alicia jokes around telling people that Teresa
comes from this pre-Conquest village of obscurity, neglectful of
progress (25). As Teresa writes in Letter 3, she does not have a prob-
lem accepting that she is from Mixquiahuala: It explained the exotic
tinge of Bellow and red in my complexion, the hint of an accent in
my baroque speech, and most of all, the undiscernible [sic] origin of
my being (Mixquiahuala 26). Moreover, the Mixquiahuala letters
indicate a desire for communication and bonding and an outward,
prospective movement. The letters create the illusion of simultaneity
of the action, thereby accentuating the sense of becoming.
She-Ns itinerary in Gulf Dreams has to do with memory in two
ways. She returns to her hometown in the Gulf of Mexico to attend a
rape trial, and her trip becomes an inward psychological movement in
which dreams and their verbalization are essential components. The
gulf dreams account for desire and longing through retrospection.
Memory is both past and future. In different but compatible ways, the
Chicana has desires and is ambulant in both novels. Nomadism and
desire are thus essential to understand Prezs and Castillos figurations
of the Chicana. Although they intersect in both novels, I will try to
separate them for clarification. Let me focus first on their nomadism.

The Chicana Writer as Nomadic

Teresa and She-N emerge as voices that are part of a chorus, that
of the Chicana artist and intellectual. They are the leading voices
of the polycentric figurations of the Chicana writing subject in each
novel. These figurations differ in their itinerant quality. Teresa is a
nomad between two nations and two cultures, looking for reparation
and new ways to confront oppression. She travels between southern

California and Chicago. There are at least two trips to Mexico, and
a promise of a third, depending on the four readings. Being the con-
trolling agent and creator of the text and the story, including her
trips, Teresas desire to establish a dialogue with Alicia to succeed
in communicating and bonding with her is parallel to her desire to
travel as a way to learn more about her Mexican descent, and to come
to terms with her gender and sexual identity.
In Gulf Dreams, physical and/or geopolitical nomadism is sec-
ondary to psychological itinerancy. She-Ns nomadic condition
merges memories from the body bodily experiences, affects, and so
on and from pure experiential inwardness. Re-membering bodily
experiences is re-membering her story. The construction of memory
with the body as the starting point is, as Prez argues, one valid and
unavoidable version of the story Chicana. Prezs emphasis on expe-
riential inwardness engages us in a reflection on what discourses to
admit, and what language to use for the story Chicana through an
exercise of metapoetic self-reflection.
In their nomadism, Castillos and Prezs choral writing subjects
disidentify with Moragas and Anzaldas visions on displacement in
complex ways. As seen previously in this book, for both Anzalda and
Moraga Anzalda in her theories about the Coyolxauhqui impera-
tive, and Moraga in her play The Hungry Woman Coyolxauhqui
becomes the central trope the goddess that was dismembered and
relegated to be the moon, exiled from the planet. Conjugating the
internal colonization paradigm with the gender and sexuality para-
digm that, according to Ramn Gutirrez, coexist in postnational-
ist Chicana/o studies, Anzalda defines the Chicana as an internal
exile or an inner exile in her post-Borderlands writings. As many
other authors who have reflected upon exile, Anzalda foresees the
liberatory potentials of displacement:
Often ostracism gives us a way out of the isolation daring to make

connections with people outside our race necessitates breaking down
categories. Because our positions are nos/otras, both/and, inside/out-
side, and inner exiles we see through the illusion of separateness. We

crack the shell of our usual assumptions by interrogating our notions

and theories of race and other differences. When we replace the old
story (of judging others by race, class, gender, and sexual groupings
and using these judgments to create barriers), we threaten people who
believe in clearly defined mutually exclusive categories. (Moraga and
Anzalda xxxviixxxviii)

The nomadic position in Anzalda enables her to debunk and
recodify traditional assumptions about race, class, gender, and sexu-
ality, beyond the illusion of separateness. In this context, replac-
ing the old story refers to writing as a central task in her intellectual
mission in a way that is similar to Moragas: Our ideas and sto-
ries are generated from the actual experience of alienation; and
through our writings we can take possession of that displacement
(Moraga, Xicana 122; emphasis in the original). And as I explained
in Juncture , Chicana intellectuals most common state of being/
becoming is, for Moraga and Anzalda, nepantla.
In Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams, both Teresa and She-N are
also figurations of the nepantlera as subjects-in-process. But how do
Prez and Castillo disidentify with Anzaldas and Moragas nomad-
ism? Initially, in the tension between abstraction and actualization,
Prez is closer to Anzalda, and Castillo closer to Moraga. Having
said that, however, there are clear differences between Prez and
Anzalda, and between Castillo and Moraga. In this regard, we could
say that our initial presuppositions, caused by our identification of
Mixquiahuala as a text that focuses on border-crossing geopolitical
trips, and Prezs as a psychological quest, become problematized and
complicated when we situate our analysis in the context of Chicana
dangerous beasts poetics.
Mixquiahualas trips are not restricted to the geopolitical. Teresas
itinerancy is about healing the wounds inflicted by abusive relation-
ships with men; that is, about the tensions between dependence and
emancipation from men. The epigraph, taken from Ana s Nin, sets
up the starting point of the narratives and the four different possible
readings: I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained
was the slavery to a pattern (Mixquiahual a, n.p.). Throughout the
letters, the potential healing of nomadism in Castillos novel can only
be achieved through Teresas bonding with Alicia. Re-membering
and discussing their trips, both the ones that they do together and
the ones done individually, allow them to confront their failed rela-
tionships with men and, at the same time, to develop their bond-
ing, which debunks traditional understandings of the limits of female

friendship. Castillo, therefore, intends to replace the old story about

gender and sexuality that affects Chicanas by means of different ways
of reading Teresas letters the letters of a Chicana writer trying to
cope with her identity crisis.
Combining poststructuralist historicism and French femi-
nism, Prezs revision is probably more theoretically informed than
Anzaldas, but it is not about spirituality. In the fissure between

vision and lived reality, Prez is not dealing with vision but rather
with poetic discourses on dreams and the body as main entries into
discussing Chicana identity and desire. Her proposal is scholarly and
experimental. She-N is not a visionary, but essentially a melancholic
persona whose trip of healing is one of return to her native border-
lands, a retrospection that moves her forward, and one that ends up in
ambiguity and the dissolution of the self into discourse, as an abstract
entity that recognizes its own discursive condition as a fantasy.
At this point, and having untangled main differences among
Anzalda, Moraga, Castillo, and Prez, I would like to disengage
from Chicana thought and discuss their nomadism in relation to
feminist theories going on in the years between the publication of
Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams, from 1985 to 1996. In fact, so far
in my discussion I have deliberately been hiding that I was using the
concept of the feminist as nomad following Rosi Braidotti; that is,
as a figuration or political plot of the contemporary feminist intel-
lectual who locates herself in the wave of a materialist of the flesh
philosophical tradition (see Introduction).
In Nomadic Subjects (1994), Braidotti elaborates on Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattaris notion of the nomad from a feminist perspective
that focuses on difference, the body, and sexuality. To clarify her new
figuration, Braidotti explains the difference between her figuration of
the nomadic subject and that of migrants, exiles, and postcolonial sub-
jects. Migrants are tied to class structure and have clear destinations for
a clear purpose that is generally economic. For them, the past acts as
a burden. They are caught in an in-between state whereby the narra-
tive of the origin has the effect of destabilizing the present (Braidotti,
Nomadic 24). Exiles, on the contrary, are forced into displacement for
political reasons, and are not necessarily connected with a specific class
status. They develop an often hostile perception of the host country
and a loss of horizon or diasporic side (Nomadic 24). Figurations
of the postcolonial subject are, according to Braidotti, usually juxta-
posed to the migrant genre but, in contrast with migrants, they are
capable of making the original culture into a living experience, one
that functions as a standard of reference (Nomadic 24).

Braidottis nomadic subject and here we have to note that she is

referring mainly to her own positioning as a feminist thinker does
not conform to any of the aforementioned definitions. The nomadic
feminist subject is beyond classification, a sort of classless unit:
The nomad does not stand for homelessness, or compulsive displace-

ment; it is rather a figuration for the kind of subject who has relin-

quished all idea, desire, or nostalgia for fixity. This figuration expresses
the desire for an identity made of transitions, successive shifts, and
coordinated changes, without and against an essential unity. The
nomadic subject, however, is not altogether devoid of unity; his/her
mode is one of definite, seasonal patterns of movement through rather
fixed routes. It is a cohesion engendered by repetitions, cyclical moves,
rhythmical displacements. (Braidotti, Nomadic 22)
In the 1990s, Braidotti elaborates her theories on feminist nomad-

ism following a basic argument the need to produce feminist
figurations or political plots from multiple points of view in order
to destabilize traditional assumptions about the self, identity, and
culture as a way out of the old schemes of thought (Braidotti,
Nomadic 3). In this context, I argue that Chicana thinkers are pro-
ducing their own figurations at the same point in time, and for similar
purposes, although they have not been analyzed by critics in rela-
tion to those figurations that have become more popular such as the
ones mentioned by Braidotti Donna Haraways cyborg, Monique
Wittigs lesbian, Teresa de Lauretiss eccentric subject, and so on
(Braidotti, Nomadic 38).
Prezs and Castillos choral figurations of the Chicana thinker as a
nomadic subject blur Braidottis distinction between migrants, exiles,
postcolonial subjects, and nomadic subjects. While Braidotti tries to
maintain clear distinctions, Chicana feminists emphasize variability
and complementarity, and therefore the insufficiency of the terms
themselves to fully describe the Chicana as a conceptual persona.
Chicana nomadism, as constructed in Mixquiahuala and Gulf
Dreams, does express, as Braidottis nomadic subject, the desire
for an identity made of transitions, successive shifts, and coordi-
nated changes. Teresa and She-N do not show any concern with
their nomadic condition. As Anzaldas New Mestiza or nepantlera,
they accept their need to occupy the transitional state of nepantla
to put order in their lives as characters and, in a more abstract way,
to configure themselves as conceptual personae as figurations of
the Chicana. The mode of the Chicana subject is also similar to
Braidottis nomadone of definite, seasonal patterns of movement

through rather fixed routes. However, and here is the main disiden-
tification, Chicana nomadism is not devoid of nostalgia for fixity.
Both Teresa and She-N want to find solace as they embark in their
physical and psychological itineraries, mostly through women bond-
ing, and women-to-women love. Moreover, they share characteristics
that are common to migrants their narrative of origin destabilizes
the present exiles they are forced into displacement for political

reasons, for being women who do not conform and postcolonial
subjects their biculturalism becomes a living experience.
Desire and the Chicana Writing Subject

As I mentioned above, desire and nomadism are inseparable in
Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams, but I am isolating them for peda-
gogical purposes. Chicana nomadism in both novels has to do with
a desire to be a subject-in-process that usually occupies the state of
nepantla. Desire is not only sexual, but also historical and linguis-
tic/discursive. These three levels of desire, as Ellie Hernndez
claims, are comprehensibly explored in Gulf Dreams. She-N conceives
Desire as anomaly. A detour into longing. A mutation of the past
encoded in the future. There is no break with the past. It lies in front
of you always (Prez, Gulf Dreams 1412). Here the novel follows
very closely the way that cultural critics such as Teresa de Lauretis
define lesbian desire. It is a limitless desire that conforms performa-
tively through habits and habit changes:
The lesbian subjects desire is limitless: in a repeated process of dis-

placement and reinvestment, her desire is a movement toward objects
that can conjure up what was never there, and therefore cannot be
refound but only found or, as it were, found again for the first time.
(Lauretis 2501)
However, Prezs rearticulation of desire goes beyond sexuality.

In this regard, Gulf Dreams as a thesis novella refers again to Prezs
work as a historian. In her Decolonial Imaginary, she offers a com-
prehensive study of memory, history, and desire that not only helps
us understand Gulf Dreams, but also becomes essential in the con-
figuration of Chicana dangerous beasts poetics. In her discussions,
she rejects contemporary materialist feminist approaches that follow
Deleuze and Guattaris ahistorical understanding of desire as a result
of spontaneous affects and surface contacts. Prez locates herself in
between two fundamental understandings of desire in the Western

world: one that considers surface effects and the development of

erogenous areas, and one that gives primacy to memory and fantasy
(Grosz 78). Prezs position as historian of the Southwest and border
women allows her to expand Chicana feminist thought by config-
uring desire not only by taking the body and sexuality as starting
points, but also by incorporating memory as the crucial channel and
tool for re-membering the story Chicana:

The memory conditions the body to want, to desire, to crave, to long,
to hunger, to beg, to plead in specific ways. The body constructs its
desire through memory, and it constructs its memory through desire.
That which may not yet be but will be is the scenario created to
satisfy desire, where bodies meet as if they have already met. The body
creates how it will crave and how it will satisfy or perhaps how it will
not be satisfied; not to be satisfied is its own craving, its own desire.
(Prez, Decolonial 109)
Desire and memory are both about the past and about the
future. This assertion is what Prez tries to explore in Gulf Dreams
by focusing on the processes of narrativization. The narrative
voice She-N constructs desire through memory, and constructs
her memory through desire.
The problem here for Prez is that She-N is an abstract entity, and
not really a body. It is a body only within the world of Gulf Dreams.
And the narratives are, as She-N herself explains, her own creation.
Even She-Y, her lover and object of desire, is part of her fantasy texts:
With phrases I create you, I create you here in text. You dont exist,
I never wanted you to exist. I only wanted to invent you like this, in
fragments through text where the memory of you inhabits those who
read this (Prez, Gulf Dreams 1389). These contradictions either
lead us to think that her novel fails in its attempt to implement Prezs
theories about desire, or that her novel is asking us to accept the valid-
ity of fantasy and the imagination in the construction of memory,
desire, and history; that is, the validity of fiction writing as a tool for
personal healing and for historicizing the story Chicana.
She-N fuses and juxtaposes different narratives about her past. The
plot seems to be simple: in the present, She-N lives in Los Angeles, but
decides to travel to her hometown in southern Texas El Pueblo to
attend a gang rape trial. Her return to El Pueblo means confront-
ing her childhood memories, and mostly her relationship with the
young woman (I call her She-Y). The plot is not chronological and
has four parts that become increasingly fragmented. The last part,

Epilogue, explains the denouement of the trial, her trip, and her ide-
alized and failed affair with the young woman. The first three parts
Confession, Trial, and Desire explore three main aspects of
She-Ns life: her socialization and sexual awakening, her symbolic
confrontation of the rape of the mestiza, and her exploration of her
sexual lesbian desire. Schematically, then, these core themes refer to
her being a Chicana border subject, being exposed to gender violence

and oppression, and being a lesbian atravesada. These three parts can
be read independently. I will come back to this later in my discussion
on the multiple readings of both Gulf Dreams and Mixquiahuala.
Ellie Hernndez and Antonio Viego have studied Gulf Dreams
comprehensibly from different perspectives. Regarding narrative
structure, Hernndez argues that Prez creates an aesthetics of frag-
mentation that is directed at the failure of cultural nationalism to recu-
perate from the colonial violence an actualization of Chicana female
autonomy as sexual subjects (Hernndez, Chronotope 1578).
Her interest is in exploring how the gender and sexuality paradigm
propelled by radical Chicanas has been a main factor in the shift to
postnationalism in Chican@ literature and cultural production (see
Introduction). Hernndez helps us appreciate Prezs radical disiden-
tifications not only with ethnonationalistic and heterosexist Chicano
narratives but also with writings by other Chicanas that often choose
traditional linear narratives instead of looking for alternative ways to
document their oppression with a language and narrative structure
that reflect their difficulties in narrativizing pain and trauma.
By contrast, Viegos reading is more pessimistic. There is, accord-
ing to him, a lack of resolution in the novel that is mostly motivated
by the inability of conjugating two approaches to desire historicist/
Foucauldian and materialistic/feminist Lacanian. According to Viego,
in the negatively charged affective universe of Gulf Dreams,
the available politization practices are not only heterosexist and mas-
culinist, they also appear to smuggle all viable expressions of resistance
and defiance into the arena of the ego, precipitating . . . terror, deni-
gration, and expulsion. In the end, ego politics terrorize, deni-
grate, and expel. (Viego 195)
While Hernndez highlights how Prez alerts us about the impos-

sibility of completely representing the Chicana and the Chicana
lesbian in particularwithout summoning the violent tropes embed-
ded in a Chicana/o colonial and nationalistic history (155), Viego
contends that Prez situates She-N and She-Ys desire in the realm of

the Lacanian Real; that is in the remnants of a prelinguistic status of

the self that is unrepresentable and unattainable.3
Contextualizing Prezs thought within the cartography of danger-
ous beasts poetics since This Bridge, my reading is more positive. Prezs
articulation of what Viego calls a psychological subject in language
(Viego 166), or what Hernndez defines as the disembodied voice
as the emblem of psychic fragmentation (Chronotope 159), con-

stitutes her own polycentric figuration of the Chicana writing subject.
Anzaldas notion of putting Coyolxauhqui together in compos-
ing the text helps us understand Prezs figuration and her particular
poetics. The fragmentation of the text refers to the dismemberment of
She-N. Her/our interpretation or re-membering of the fragments is
a situational act; stylized repetitions of writing/reading the text will
form habits and habit changes that will eventually conform the identity
of the body/text called Gulf Dreams. The Chicana writing subject is
here She-N and her texts, including both herself and us as implied read-
ers. The Chicana writing subject creates the text from within the text.
This, of course, is an illusion that the novel is asking us to accept. That
is how the text may agitate us, outside-insiders, into action.
It is not surprising that Anzalda read Gulf Dreams as a narrative
of potential healing, as if it was one of her autohistoria-teoras. This is
part of what she wrote for the back cover of the novel:
In Gulf Dreams, a Chicana dyke becomes the active subject of history

working through the haunting of desire, tracking the pleasure and
pain, and ultimately relating that loss to betrayal. Trapped between
visions, she recounts her search for meaning through the broken body,
stating, I am my only real witness. (Prez, Gulf Dreams n.p.)
Prezs work represents a substantial expansion of Chicana dan-

gerous beasts poetics by creating a dialogue with historicism and
feminist psychoanalysis. Her post-Freudian and Lacanian affiliations
separate her from Anzaldas Jungian inspiration, moving away from
James Hillmans polycentric psychology and his approach to myth
making and spirituality. However, Prezs approach to the composi-
tion of the text, and by extension to the story Chicana, supports the
performativity and continuity of the body/text metaphor advocated
by Anzaldas and Moragas indigenist views. Most importantly, Prez
invites us to validate fictional stories and the power of fantasy and the
imagination as ways to construct the story Chicana.
Now we can go back to Mixquiahualas focus on women bond-
ing and ethnography and read it in relation to the lack of resolution

and resistance to representation embedded in Prezs exploration of

desire. As in Gulf Dreams, desire is much more than just the sexual
desire in Mixquiahuala. The bond between Teresa and Alicia sub-
verts traditional configurations of desire in radical ways. First, their
desire disturbs the limits of what we may understand as heterosexual
and homosexual love, and women-to-women love. Second, it disturbs
the relationship between the Chicana and the white Anglo American

woman. Third, in the novel desire asks for a radical reconfiguration of
womens dependence on men. Fourth, it blurs the boundaries between
ethnographers and their object of analysis. Overall, Mixquiahuala
argues for subverting and reconfiguring the dichotomy oppressor/
oppressed that of the perceivers/those perceived as dangerous
beasts. Any of the characters in Teresas letters can certainly occupy
any of the two positions throughout the narrative.
In Mixquiahuala, as in Gulf Dreams, the discourse on sexuality
is part of a broader concern with gender oppression and gender vio-
lence as part of Teresas overall, utopian desire for emancipation. The
bond between Teresa and her addressee is so strong that at times the
reader may be left to wonder about their love affair and bisexuality.
This deliberate ambiguity shows Castillos interest in exploring sexual
desire and fluid sexualities, but it is not the center of the novel. In
fact, sexual ambiguity is a symptom of a main strategy of the novel:
the construction of the narrative by the Chicana writer, and from
her perspective as the Master of the Game. Similarly to what hap-
pens in Gulf Dreams, Teresa creates the narrative her letters and
thus creates her becoming, and her objects of desire, including Alicia.
Her desire to know more about her undiscernible origins, however,
still has a strong ambiguous component. Both Teresa and Alicia joke
about Mixquiahuala as Teresas Toltec roots, and it may probably be
a fiction. But if Teresas origins are a fiction, what is this quest and
movement about? Is this pure nomadism, and just transitory attach-
ment and cyclical frequentation, as Braidotti defines nomadic style
(Braidotti, Nomadic 25)? The answer may be in the playfulness that
Castillo promotes through her dialogue with Cortzar; that is, in the
multiple readings and the open ending of the novel.
Multiple Readings, Endings, and Ambiguities

Looking for ones own roots and constructing ones own identity
through writing are contingent and creative processes that position
Chicanas as nomadic and desiring subjects in both Mixquiahuala and
Gulf Dreams. They amalgamate art and theory. In both Castillos and

Prezs fiction the role of the reader is essential to the construction

of these processes.
Mixquiahuala is dedicated to Julio Cortzar as the Master of
the Game (Mixquiahuala n.p.). Following Cortzars masterpiece
Hopscotch, in a notice to the reader the authorial voice suggests four
possible readings of the 40 letters included in the novel for the
conformist, for the cynic, for the quixotic, or as separate entities, in a

conventional, linear way (n.p.). In both the linear and the conformist
readings, Alicias alcoholic husband Adbel shoots himself dead. In the
linear reading this happens in the last letter, leaving us in a moment of
maximum tension after knowing how Abdel is abusive to Alicia and
even destroys her paintings. In the conformist reading, Teresa is plan-
ning to travel to Mexico with her son after Abdels death, and after
Teresa expresses her desire to confront her ghosts.
The cynic reading is the one that focuses more on Teresa and
Alicias friendship as representative of the relationship between
Chicanas and Anglo-American white women. Their conflict, exposed
by Teresa in Letter 13, leads to Letter 37, confronting her ghosts, and
finally to Letter 38, where Alicia, by liberating herself from the abu-
sive Abdel, betrays Teresa by travelling to Puerto Rico with her boy-
friend. Cynicism has to do with the conflicting relationship among
Chicanas and white women.
Finally, in the Quixotic reading, Alicia and Teresa are planning
to go back to Mexico, after Teresas statement about confronting her
ghosts in Letter 37. By making Letter 1 the last letter in this reading,
Castillo is also suggesting an endless process of (re)reading, since the
reader is finishing the act of reading in the first pages of the book,
and not close to the back cover.
Lets see what critics have said about these multiple readings and
endings. Alvina Quintana examines Teresas role as an ethnogra-
pher, and Castillos efforts to portray border culture from a femi-
nist perspective in the novel. Castillos multiple readings are part
of her interpretive or experimental ethnography (Quintana 75).
For Quintana, Castillos figuration of the Chicana writer includes
gender and sexuality in the ethnographical explanation of Chican@
border culture and, at the same time, questions conventional under-
standings of the role of the ethnographer in the wake of Renato
Rosaldos ideas about the ethnographer as participant-observer
(see Introduction).
Erlinda Gonzales-Berry focuses on how the four possible readings
in Mixquiahuala debunk the authority of the author as Master of
the Game. In this regard, she argues that Castillo questions and

mocks Cortzars ideas about a lectura macho active, male read-

ing and a lectura hembra passive, female reading as explained
by the character of the philosopher Morelli in Hopscotch.
My reading is closer to Yvonne Yarbro-Bejaranos, who studies
Teresa as a speaking/writing subject. For Yarbro-Bejarano, a linear
reading of The Mixquiahuala Letters

foregrounds the bonding between the two women through failed rela-
tionships with men . . . The other endings, labeled the conformist, the
cynic and the quixotic, represent other possible ways of living out dif-
ferent strands of Teresas subjectivity the confirmation of maternal
and cultural dictates in the conformist, safely recuperated within the
traditional, extended Mexican family; the confirmation of womens
betrayal of women in the cynic, as Alicia takes off for Puerto Rico
with Teresas boyfriend; and the quixotic preparations for yet another
trip to Mexico in the version that ends with the first letter, in spite of
or perhaps because of all the have learned. The texts meaning is in no
one of these endings and in all. (Yarbro-Bejarano, Multiple Subject
6768)
As opposed to Gonzales-Berrys views, it is not the mocking of

Cortzar that is important for Yarbro-Bejarano, but rather how the
structure of the novel in which Teresa as writing subject seeks self-
understanding through the sifting and reconstructing of experience,
opens up a space for other genres, such as poetry, and also for other
points of view (Multiple Subject 68).
In Mixquiahuala, Castillo is as controlling as Cortzar in
Hopscotch. The Argentinean writer did not reject the linear, logical
reading of the chapters, but added two other possible readings, and
even defied readers to choose their own order. His mastery was in
fact supporting a high dosage of playfulness, and an idea of fiction as
a game in which readers may achieve complete freedom of the imagi-
nation. As for Gonz lez-Berrys interpretation, we need to be aware
that Cortzar did not support either a lectura macho or a lectura
hembra. These are not Cortzars theories, but those of Morellis, a
fictional and unreliable character in Hopscotch.
What really differentiates Castillo from Cortzar is how she asks
us to read the letters depending on a certain mood. Hers are mood
readings; that is, situational and provisional. Moreover, Castillos
poetics focuses on the reading process in relation to the process of
composition. She connects the reading process to the process of re-
membering the body and the text that Anzalda explores regarding
composition. The polycentricity of the writing subject reflects the

polycentricity of the implied reader in the novel. In this sense, and

following my previous discussions, Castillo is treating the reader as
a nomadic and desiring subject who actively participates in the con-
struction of dangerous beasts poetics.
Before concluding, I would like to comment on an interesting ques-
tion that arises in relation to our comparative analysis of Castillos and
Prezs novels. Could we also have multiple readings of Gulf Dreams?

This would be an experiment helped by the fact that the novella traces
so many ambiguities and possible readings. The epilogue would be
the last part where all narratives come together and are explained,
but each part can be read in any order. There could be at least 6 pos-
sible readings: (1) Desire, Confession, Trial, and Epilogue; (2) Desire,
Trial, Confession, and Epilogue; (3) Trial, Confession, Desire, and
Epilogue; (4) Trial, Desire, Confession, and Epilogue; (5) Confession,
Desire, Trial, and Epilogue; and (6) Confession, Trial, Desire, and
Epilogue. Since there is no authorial voice that tells us at any time
that we should read the novel in a particular way, I am not going
to analyze any of these readings. I would fall into speculation. But
we should be aware that the combinations are entirely possible.
Furthermore, they reveal the polycentricity of the narrative, and the
multiple ambiguities involved in Prezs approach to the constructed-
ness of memory as story/history. Notwithstanding this, we can also
point out that, by not asking for different readings, Prez is asserting
the validity of the She-Ns organization of her fantasies in her text,
and thereby the validity of the Chicanas own construction of her
narrativeI am my only real witness, as Anzalda says about the
novel. In this regard, Prez may be going even further than Castillo
in her questioning of the traditional authoritas of the author.
Conclusion
Viegos Lacanian reading of Gulf Dreams focuses too much on the
negatively charged affective universe of the novel, and leaves out
the consideration of creativity and the imagination as potentially lib-
eratory components of writing/reading/re-membering. This is espe-
cially true in the last fragment of the novella: This part of the story
has to be over, even though I dont believe in endings. I believe in
the imagination, its pleasure indelible, transgressive, a dream (Prez,
Gulf Dreams 157).
Nevertheless, Viegos approach is revealing as for Chicanas figu-
rations of the dangerous beasts. In some ways, and especially in the
case of She-N and Teresa, the semblances of the Chicana belong to

the Lacanian Real. As dangerous beasts, the Chicana writing subject

resists representation in any textual or artistic form and remains
in uncanny territories, as polymorphic and mutating entities that
provoke horror and abjection.4 The voices and images of the danger-
ous beasts are apparent, and create anxiety if our goal as readers is to
find resolution or fixity. As Anzalda maintains, there is no resolu-
tion but the healing process, but it is the nostalgia for fixity what,

as opposed to what Braidotti maintains with her feminist nomadic
subject, provokes arrebatos that stimulate us to initiate the path
of conocimiento. Castillos and Prezs explorations of Anzaldas
Coyolxauhqui consciousness in Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams
focus on both the reading and the writing process and their interac-
tion. Both writing and reading have the potential to provide heal-
ing to Chicanas. They are nomadic ways to decipher relationships,
desire, and love. They both can become radical ways of constructing
identity.
In Mixquiahuala and Gulf Dreams, Castillos and Prezs reposi-
tionings clearly move away from the mythological and the spiritual.
Both authors add figurations that are strongly fictional. By doing
that, they disidentify with Anzalda and Moragas mythohistorical
and mythopoetical focus. They also expand dangerous beasts poetics
by incorporating the Latin American literary tradition, in the case
of Castillo; and by adding historicism and feminist psychoanalysis
in Prezs thesis novella. Gaspar de Alba, with Sor Juana and the
postmodern historical novel will situate herself in an intermediate
position: the mythohistorical. As I will examine in the next chapter,
Gaspar de Alba will focus on the importance of appearance in pro-
viding new figurations of the Chicana, but writing and reading will
still be central.
Moreover, Castillo anticipates the transnational focus of Cisneros,
at both the cultural elements and the structural level of the narrative.
Prez advocates for a transnational and transdisciplinary approach at
the theoretical level and recognizes the insufficiency of theoretical
inwardness. Both confront ghosts and sadness. But when we confront
their narratives we obtain multiple specular effects: in Mixquiahuala,
Teresa and Alicia reflect each other; in my comparative analysis
Teresa and the She-N also reflect each other; both characters reflect
Anzaldas and Moragas figurations; and even us, as implied read-
ers, see ourselves in each of their voices. Teresas description of her
relationship with Alicia may clarify this specular effect: we needled,
stabbed, manipulated, cut, and through it all we loved, driven to see
the other improved in her own reflection (29). From her description

of women-to-women desirewilling to see the other improved in

ones own reflectionwe can extrapolate the interconnectedness
that takes place among different figurations of the Chicana. This is a
fascinating point that reveals the complex approach to commonality
inherent in the creation of dangerous beasts poetics.

Juncture
Antiacademicism

R adical Chicanas lovehate relationship with academia creates
many of the double binds at the junctures of their poetics. Their
resistance to academia contrasts with the imperative to access educa-
tion and academic positions. Furthermore, this conflicting relation-
ship creates internal divisions that affect their search of a language
and a style, what Cherre Moraga calls a Xicana codex of changing
consciousness. But their antiacademicism should not be viewed as a
simple reactionary act of resistance or sustained radicalism. It has also
been a productive fissure or juncture that is essential to understand
the evolvement of their art and theories.
In This Bridge, Gloria Anzalda and Moragas insistence on writ-
ing political analysis in everyday terms (Moraga and Anzalda liv)
referred mostly to the separation that academia creates between the
scholar and the community. Later on, their critiques focused on the
abstraction of academic jargon, and the appropriation and misinter-
pretation of their ideas. These two aspects capitalize radical Chicanas
discussions since the 1980s.
In Moragas writings, the reaction against the university system
and its jargon has been constant. In a 2000 interview, she complains:
some of our best writers and thinkers have been hijacked into the
academy and are talking a language that I dont understand, teaching
a theory that I feel is increasingly remote from class-based concerns
(Greene 313). This critique of academia and its jargon as alienating
and objectifying is also present in Ana Castillos work. In Massacre
of the Dreamers, she rejects the term Chicana feminism and coins
Xicanisma as a reaction against that alienation. The X in Xicana,
for both Castillo and Moraga not only marks their indigenist approach
but also their resistance to comply with being tokenized, and with

being defined and domesticated through languages that are alien to

their experience and mentality:
In recent years, the idea of Chicana feminism has been taken up by

the academic community where I believe it has fallen prey to theoreti-
cal abstractions. Eventually I hope that we can rescue Xicanisma from
the suffocating atmosphere of conference rooms, the acrobatics of aca-

demic terms and concepts and carry it out to our work place, social
gatherings, kitchens, bedrooms, and society in general. (Castillo,
Massacre 11)
Moragas thoughts about academia are synthesized in her essay

Out of Our Revolutionary Minds: Toward a Pedagogy of Revolt,
included in the expanded edition of Loving in 2000. She reflects upon
her way to approach literature, locating herself as part of Chicana writ-
ers history of eloquent illiteracy (174); that is, their stigmatization
as bad writers with poor academic formation. For her, insurrection is
never fully realized in academia (173). She looks for ways of writing
that go against a theoretical disembodied discourse: The body
has been lost in the language of the academy because Art (as well as
the Art of Writing) and the social-political movements it incitesthat
meeting place of mind and mattercannot find expression there
(Moraga, Out of Our Revolutionary Minds 174, 175).
Sandra Cisneros, in her particular metanarrative about her writings,
explains how her moment of realization as a writer was also one of reac-
tion against academia. In her essay A Woman of No Consequence:
Una Mujer Cualquiera, as well as in several interviews, she describes
how she found her personal voice in a graduate class at the University
of Iowa, Iowa City, in 1978, discussing Gaston Bachelards Poetics of
Space. In a discussion of the house as a felicitous space with other
graduate students, she realized that her ideas and perspectives as a
working-class Chicana were not represented in the book or in their
discussion about houses: I realized that I was the only person in the
creative writing workshop that didnt have the same type of memory
as Bachelard did regarding houses. This made me realize my class dif-
ference, and, subsequently, my gender difference regarding homes
(Oliver-Rotger).
For Cisneros that was the epiphanic moment that caused her to
become angry and to write from that place of difference (Elliott).
Her solution against being alienated at the university was to write
from her own perspective, to rewrite stories others have miswritten,
to develop her own style, and to achieve self-autonomy as a writer.

ANTIACADEMICISM 109
So resistance to academia is, for Moraga, a question that has to do

with miseducation and separation from the real concerns of the com-
munity, which cannot be expressed theoretically. For Cisneros, it is
rather something that relates to her personal experience as a Chicana
student learning creative writing. Both allude to class, gender, and
ethnicity issues, but what are their solutions?
As noted in her reflections, Moraga finds a provisional solution

through the metaphor of the body and its reconstitution, conceiving
the Chicana artist as the revolutionary body that reads and writes.
On her part, Cisneros wants to find a unique and engaging style that
challenges peoples preconceptions about identity. Her critique of aca-
demia and her mission as a writer are clear when an interviewer asks
her to give a definition of a short story:
I dont know what the definition of a short story is, and I dont even
care to answer that question. Thats something somebody in academia
would think about. I just want to tell a story, and if people listen, and
if it stays with you, its a story. For me, a storys a story if people want
to hear it; its very much based on oral storytelling . . . Its power is that
it makes people shut up and listen, and not many things make people
shut up and listen these days. They remember it, and it stays with them
without their having to take notes. They wind up retelling it, and it
affects their lives, and theyll never look at something the same way
again. It changes the way they think, in other words. (Elliott)
Another contentious dimension of antiacademicism is in the way

higher institutions have treated radical Chicanas. The case of Anzalda
is paradigmatic. Her relationship with academia was marked by sus-
tained attraction and rejection on both ends. She was a graduate stu-
dent at the University of Texas, Austin, when she decided to move
to California to become a writer in the mid-1970s. Later on, after
publishing Borderlands in 1987, she took different temporary posi-
tions and decided to pursue her PhD at the University of California
at Santa Cruz, but her dissertation work was rejected several times for
its lack of academicism. Months before her untimely death in 2004,
Anzalda was informed that she had finally been awarded her PhD.
By contrast, Emma Prez and Alicia Gaspar de Alba have been very
successful as scholars in top academic institutions and programs, in spite
of continuous scrutiny and lack of referents. For example, Gaspar de Alba
in 1982, when asked to write an introduction for the poetry collection
she wrote as her Master of Fine Arts thesis, decided to write a journal
over the span of a week. The result was a piece entitled Introspection

Week: Taking Time Out to Talk About Theoretics, or Who Says

Chicanas Can Write? Her poetics at that time was based on canonical
authors such as Wallace Stevens and Robert Bly. She had read Chicano
texts, but her only theoretical reference came from an anthology: As
the editors of the anthology Literatura Chicana say: The essence of
Chicano culture is dynamic, rather than static. And that too, is the
essence of my poetry. I use tradition to reshape culture, to carve out my

own personal interpretation of it (Gaspar de Alba, Giving xiii).
Comparing Gaspar de Albas earliest theorizations with her
current theories on border consciousness reveals how her particular
search for form, to use the term that Toms Rivera used to charac-
terize Chicano literature in the 1970s, was especially arduous because
of the absence of referents and sources. And so it was for other radical
Chicanas. However, when they consolidated their corpus of thought,
and started the creation of their own oppositional jargon, inter-
nal tensions also arose regarding the use of outside sources. Prez,
whose writings show the impossibility of avoiding a dialogue with
other contemporary feminist theories, offered a partial solution to
these tensions by introducing the concept of strategic essentialism
into Chicanas living Chicana theory in a homonymous collection
in 1998. But ironically, she spent most of the essay trying to justify
why this term could be of use for Chicanas. After elaborating several
times on the appropriateness of the use of French feminism to define
Chicana lesbian identity, Prezs essay, entitled Irigarays Female
Symbolic in the Making of Chicana Lesbian Sitios y Lenguas (Sites
and Discourses) ends with the following paragraph:
Again, I ask myself, why I, a Chicana lesbian, am attracted to Irigarays

female symbolic, herself a Eurocentric feminist, although cognizant of
historical materialism. I find in her work an essentializing strategy, a
point of departure for my own essentializing strategies as a historical
materialist from a region twice conquered and colonized. I find in her
work a method that strips away masks, and I find in her work the sug-
gestion of a solution, the construction of female discourses. Our com-
munities have always had a healthy degree of community separatism,
spaces and languages apart from invasion, conquest, rape, and penetra-
tion, whether conquest is discursive (of the body of text) or territorial
and physical (of the land and body). As an idealist, I continue to envi-
sion a future materially grounded in a female symbolic that appreciates
irreducible differences. (Irigarays Female Symbolic 99)
These brief examples expose both internal diversity within radi-

cal Chicana feminists, and the tensional coexistence of their own

ANTIACADEMICISM 111
individual contradictory positionings and repositionings. As indi-

viduals, radical Chicanas intellectual itineraries have conformed to
certain antiacademic patterns; as a collective that is embarked on a
common project, they show a multidimensional, democratic dialogue
that is not about finding a balance or an either-or position, but rather
about passionate discussions, accepting both self-critique and the cri-
tique of others, and choosing provisional patterns of behavior. This

is one of the lessons of the aesthetic education that dangerous beasts
poetics offers to younger generations of Chicanas who are consolidat-
ing their presence in academic positions, as well as to outside-insider
readers and critics who approach and participate in the shaping of this
poetics.


Chapter 4
Alicia Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana as

Symbolic Foremother
I n a fictional interview with Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz, arguing

that there is ample evidence of the nuns lesbianism in her writ-
ings and strategic silences, Alicia Gaspar de Alba situates Sor Juana
as the symbolic foremother for Chicana lesbians (Gaspar de Alba,
Politics 1445). Gaspar de Alba defends her right to recreate the
nun from her own political location in a way that is similar to other
Chicana artists reinventions of cultural myths. Her novel and the
substantial scholarship behind it adds her to the list of intellectuals
that throughout history have recreated the mythical figure of the cri-
olla nun as a reflection of their own ideologies and political affilia-
tions.1 As a well-established Chicana scholar, Gaspar de Alba is in a
position that allows her to confront Octavio Pazs interpretation of
Sor Juanas life and works, from a radical Chicana perspective.2
In my cartography of dangerous beasts poetics, Gaspar de Alba
shares territories with Anzalda, Moraga, Castillo, and Prez in dif-
ferent ways. Anzalda is a constant source of inspiration, since Gaspar
de Alba is primarily concerned with narrativizing and historicizing
border identity, and with looking for a methodology that may res-
titute and empower border subjects. Using Anzaldas terminology,
Gaspar de Albas path of conocimiento, as we will see later, will deal
with the theorization of border consciousness as a central goal.
Gaspar de Alba disidentifies with Moragas indigenist approach,
but her Sor Juana resonates with Moragas Cerezita. They are both
prototypes of the radical Chicana intellectual. As an impossible non-
human or less-than-human representation of the Chicana, Cerezita
accounts for a semblance of the Chicana intellectual in its embryonic
stage, as a head that wishes to establish links with the world and her

community by coming to terms with her desires through reading and

self-learning. Cerezita is full of liberatory potential, both redemptory
and reparative, but she is also an enigma. She is impossible in realistic
terms. While Moragas polycentric figuration of Cerezita/Guadalupe
is a fusion of a fictional impossible character and the mythopoetical
recreation of the Virgin of Guadalupe by the Chicano Movement,
Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana occupies an intermediate mythohistorical

position. Alma L pezs Las Four comes to mind as a useful visualiza-
tion to clarify this. Out of the three levels in the mural reality, the
mythohistorical, and the mythopoetical L pez places Sor Juana in
the second, intermediate level (see chapter 1).
If we look at the mythical figures/role models that L pez includes
in this liminal mythohistorical level a young Dolores Huerta, a
Soldadera, Rigoberta Mench, and Sor Juana as well as many other
figures that could occupy this position Frida Kahlo, Malinche,
Selena, Anzalda (!), and others it is evident that the level of the
mythohistorical is where difference and diversity predominate within
the polycentric figurations of the Chicana. The mythohistorical, we
could say, represents the state of nepantla at its purest, in between
reality and myth.
Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana is close to Castillos interest in establish-
ing a dialogue with the Latin American literary and aesthetic tradi-
tion, and in highlighting this link through both a confrontation with
its patriarchal configuration and a revisionist feminist recodification.
Gaspar de Albas confrontation with Pazs vision of Sor Juana echoes
Castillos playful contestation of Cortzar as the Master of the Game.
Finally, with Emma Prez Gaspar de Alba shares a fundamental
feminist strategy. As tenured scholars, Prez and Gaspar de Alba
are clear supporters of resistance from within, rather than resistance
to academia. Moreover, their use of fictional narrative as a way of
implementing or playing out their theorizations has similar empha-
ses. Gaspar de Albas particular exploration of the performativity of
gender and sexuality at the level of discourse is part of what Susana
Chvez-Silverman calls frontertica, defined as a theoretically
sophisticated refiguration of both the border (vis a vis traditional
Chicano renditions) and of a specifically Chicana lesbian desire (vis
a vis heterosexual Chicana eroticism and Anglo lesbian feminism)
(Chicanas in Love 45). Gaspar de Albas poetics, according to
Chavez-Silverman, does not attempt to foreclose, but rather to fore-
ground . . . that deep ambivalence, the differentiation and hybridity
of the border (45). As in Prezs Gulf Dreams, border hybridity is
inextricably linked in Gaspar de Albas works with fluid sexualities

S O R J UA N A A S S Y M B O L I C F O R E M O T H E R 115
and the importance of sexual fantasies and the imagination in the

performativity of gender.
This very brief act of mapping defines my approach in this chapter
to Gaspar de Albas repositionings within dangerous beasts poetics.
First, I contend that Sor Juana is not only a role model or foremother
for Chicana lesbians, but rather the mythohistorical prototype of the
Chicana writer/scholar. Second, I consider how Gaspar de Albas Sor

Juana engages in a playful confrontation with Pazs Sor Juana. Paul
Allatson points out that one of the main issues at stake regarding
Gaspar de Albas revision of Sor Juana is to avow the lesbians presence
against the grain of the Paz centered and dominated Mexican canon
(Allatson 23). I discuss this in terms of political disidentifications, but
not as a blatant or simplistic opposition. And third, as I did in my
analysis of Prezs Gulf Dreams that is expanded in this chapter I
read Sor Juanas Second Dream in close connection with Gaspar de
Albas own theories; that is, as a thesis novel.
By examining these three aspects, I elucidate how Gaspar de Alba,
in the process of reinventing Sor Juana to validate her own position in
liberatory ways, reveals her particular poetics. On the one hand, she
expands the body/text metaphor used by other radical Chicanas by
exploring the aesthetics of appearance. On the other, she expands the
exploration of the Chicana writer as a nomadic and desiring subject
by focusing on language and sexuality. Her figuration of the Chicana
writer emerges, in Sor Juanas Second Dream, from the intersection of
the third-person narrative voice and Sor Juana as a polycentric speak-
ing/writing subject within the novel.
Alicia Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana

Chicana feminists have been interested in Sor Juana as a protofemi-
nist icon since the early seventies. She is mentioned in the documen-
tary Chicana (1976), as well as in essays by pioneer thinkers such as
Anna NietoGomez, who considered the nun a positive role model for
1970s Chicanas because of her brilliant intelligence and strong voice
(Garca 54). Among the many recreations by Chicana and Latina art-
ists, Estela Portillo-Trambleys full-length play Sor Juana (1983) is
clearly the most ambitious attempt to reflect the political location of
Chicanas through the recreation of Sor Juanas life.
After ten years of research and writing, Gaspar de Alba published
Sor Juanas Second Dream almost 20 years after Portillo-Trambleys
play. Both reinventions of Sor Juana show the different horizons of
expectations in Chicana feminist cultural production of the late 1970s

and the late 1990s. Portillo-Trambleys Sor Juana renounces writing

in order to devote herself fully to helping the most needy during a
black plague crisis. Her interpretation of the myth follows some of
the main tenets of the Chicano Movement in the 1970s a focus on
social justice and community service. By contrast, Gaspar de Albas
Sor Juana is reinvented under the light of a new radical feminist para-
digm that focuses on gender, sexuality, and the body in a polyvocal

and more theoretical rearticulation of Chicana identity.
Although Gaspar de Albas novel revises Portillo-Trambleys rec-
reation from a new perspective, the novel disidentifies mainly with
Octavio Pazs interpretation of the nuns life and works in his influen-
tial study Sor Juana, o las trampas de la fe (1982), a text that was not
available for Portillo-Trambley. Pazs comprehensive study of the life
and works of the Mexican nun, published at the zenith of his career,
becomes an essential source for the interpretation of Sor Juana in rela-
tion to Mexican identity, and so it is for Gaspar de Albas reinvention.
Examining both Sor Juanas texts about her own life, and the
main biographical works on the nun since her death in the late sev-
enteenth century, Paz analyzes two main events in the construction
of Sor Juanas life: her decision to take the vows at the Convent of
San Jernimo in Mexico City, and her renunciation of writing three
years before her death. Both have continued to be enigmatic for crit-
ics in relation to Sor Juanas own explanation in her autobiographical
Respuesta a Sor Filotea in 1691, a personal essay in the form of a letter
that was posthumously published in 1700:
Entrme religiosa, porque aunque conoca que ten a el estado de

cosas . . . muchas repugnantes a mi genio, con todo, para la total neg-
acin que ten a al matrimonio era lo menos desproporcionado y lo ms
decente que pod a elegir en materia de la seguridad que deseaba de mi
salvacin, a cuyo primer respeto . . . de querer vivir sola; de no querer
tener ocupacin obligatoria que desembarazase la libertad de mi estu-
dio, ni rumor de comunidad que impidiese el sosegado silencio de mis
libros. (Cruz, Poems 1516)
Paz argues that Sor Juanas decision to become a nun made sense
because of both the expectations for women at the time and her cri-
ollo origins. Regarding her renunciation of writing, Paz discusses
three extenuating factors: her sense of guilt, knowing that she did not
have a religious vocation; her losing the support of her protectors at
the viceroys palace; and finally the nuns recognition that following
the intellectual path and performing her conventual duties were by

all means incompatible, especially after becoming a well-known intel-

lectual in New Spain and the Spanish Empire.
Gaspar de Alba clarifies her position in her fictional interview with
Sor Juana, published a year earlier than her novel. She concurs with
Paz regarding the nuns decision to enter the convent as the only way
for her to become an intellectual and a writer. However, Gaspar de
Alba rejects Pazs view of Sor Juana as asexual or bisexual, empha-

sizing the fact that none of Sor Juanas critics or biographers have
been able to prove Sor Juanas heterosexuality:
Despite Octavio Pazs admonition that there are no documents to

prove her Sapphic tendencies, through both her writings and stra-
tegic silence, Sor Juana offers us ample evidence of her true inclina-
tions. She certainly would not be the first lesbian nun in the history
of the Catholic Church. (Politics 145)
Gaspar de Alba refers to Sor Juanas poems on the death of the

Marquesa de Mancera, and those dedicated to the Condesa de
Paredes as clear evidence of her homoerotic desire. This adds to the
revolutionary ideas about women and gender, as well as ethnicity and
race that can be found in Sor Juanas texts. For Gaspar de Alba, then,
Sor Juana can become a symbolic foremother of Chicana lesbian
feminism (Politics 144). With this premise, she envisions the plan
of her novel, and her reinvention of Sor Juana as the foremother of
the dangerous beast:
My own novel in progress focuses on Sor Juanas veiled subjectiv-

ity as a lesbian. Drawing together historical facts about Sor Juanas
life . . . and critical insights gleaned from Sor Juanas own scribblings,
the novel traces the quest of Sor Juanas self-acceptance through a
maze of struggles between logic and passion, employing the narrative
technique of first-, second- and third-person perspectives to character-
ize Sor Juanas multiple selves and conflicts. (Politics 162)
In partial opposition to Paz, Gaspar de Albas interpretation of

Sor Juanas renunciation of writing is much more complex. It came
as a result of political pressures inside and outside the convent, that
had to do with gender and sexuality issues, her criollo origins, and
her defense of the marginalized in her writings. Gaspar de Alba
writes:
It is my theory that she was a victim of an ultimatum. As powerful as

her protectors had once been, she now faced not just her confessor, her

mother superior, and the rest of the convent, but the archbishop of
Mexico and the Holy Office as well. Their ultimatum must have been
quite simple: Either prostrate yourself to the church or be publicly
humiliated in the Quemadero. (Politics 142)
The ultimatum for Gaspar de Alba was motivated by a progressive

lack of support within the palace and the church as much as to suspi-

cions about her condition as a female writer whose sexual orientation
was ambiguous and perverted. Her decision to become a nun earlier
in her life had to do with guilt, but it was not only guilt about not
having a vocation, as defended by Paz, but rather guilt at her own
discovery of homoerotic desire.
Gaspar de Albas Theories

As I mentioned, Sor Juanas Second Dream can be read as thesis novel.
Gaspar de Albas views on perspectivism as a cultural critic are crucial
to understand her poetics and her approach to myth-making. Her
cultural criticism provides ideas on gender, perspective, and position-
ality, as well as a theory of oppositional consciousness that is closely
related to her reinvention of Sor Juana. In her 1998 book-length
study of the CAR AChicano Art Resistance and Affirmation,
19651985exhibition, Gaspar de Alba explores multiperspectiv-
ism as a way to understand Chicano visual representations and their
reception. Her own approach to the exhibition as a cultural text
serves as a guide for our own interpretation of her literary writings.
As a cultural critic and creative writer, Gaspar de Alba is interested
in direct observation, trying to avoid unnecessary theorizations, and
keeping awareness of her own positioning as participant-observer,
as defined by Rosaldo and Chicana feminists like Deena Gonz lez:
outside insiders such as myself . . . have elided scientific methodolo-
gies (insofar as it is possible in a First World society) and rely heav-
ily on participant-observation from critical vantage points (Cit. in
Gaspar de Alba, Chicano Art 25). Taking this intermediate position
as interpreter/ethnographer allows for a methodology that values
multiple positionalities without subscribing to or perpetuating its
colonizing gaze (Gaspar de Alba, Chicano Art 25).
Point of view is crucial in Gaspar de Albas poetics. She first posi-
tions herself, and then defends the position of the native eye/I of
Chicanas and Chicanos, which does not assume only one correct,
authentic interpretation (if that even exists), but allows for an inter-
pretive stance framed by the politics of self-representation (Chicano

Art 27). It is the resistance to being defined as the Other by the

discourse of the oppressor/ colonizer that concerns Gaspar de Alba.
A look into her analysis of some of the images included in the CAR A
exhibition will help us understand her interest in vision, self-represen-
tation, and what she calls eye-conography (151).
According to Gaspar de Alba, the eyes that show behind the CAR A
logo do not represent the vision of the insiders nor of the outsid-

ers, but a postmodern fragmentation of both; that is, a culturally
schizophrenic vision (113). She analyzes again the metaphor of the
gaze in Marcos Rayas canvas Through Fridas Eyes (1984), included
in the section entitled Cultural Icons. The placement of this canvas
in the exhibition is important, since it may represent the appropria-
tion of the female figure by the traditionally male-oriented Chicano
Art Movement. This feminist interpretation is stronger when Gaspar
de Alba explains how the author shows the image of Frida Kahlo in
order to convey his own subjectivity as a male Chicano.
The painting includes two images that are fairly symmetrical,
through the eyes of Kahlo. The representation of muscles and bones
from inside the body emphasizes the constructedness of the painting,
as well as the partiality of any perspectiveFrida Kahlo would not be
able to see her own muscle tissue. Gaspar de Alba explains that the
left side represents the male world of movement, growth, continu-
ance; the right side represents the female world of sexuality, intro-
spection, death (153). One possible interpretation is summarized in
this paragraph:
The she in question is, first, the artist who has donned the mask of
Fridas vision, but also the viewer who is positioned by the piece not as
an observer but as a surrogate for the artist. She can also represent the
selection committee. Thus, artist, viewer, and curator become Frida
Kahlo, assume a subjectivity that is not their own and that is, moreover,
located in a female body, in a womans politics of location. The piece is
indeed, open to a transgendered interpretation. (Chicano Art 157)
Two aspects that interest Gaspar de Alba as a cultural critic are

present in her literary works: a concern about the appropriation of
female subjectivities through discourses, with special attention to dis-
cursive transgenderism; and the importance of the gaze and focaliza-
tion that are inherent to positionality. I will go back to them later.
Sor Juana was persecuted for being a curiosity, for being a danger-
ous monster or beast that could destabilize patriarchal power at the
palace, in the church, and in the academic circles of the times. In the

novel, this persecution runs parallel to her sexual awareness and her
construction as a nomadic and desiring subject. In every instance of
her identity crisis, Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana will undertake a rite
of passage from cultural schizophrenia to border consciousness, fol-
lowing Gaspar de Albas theories. For her, cultural schizophrenia is
the presence of mutually contradictory or antagonistic beliefs, social
forms, and material traits in any group whose racial, religious, or

social components are a hybrid of two or more cultures (also known
as mestizaje) (Gaspar de Alba, Rights 199). Discussing the trans-
formation of Rudy Robles in Cheech Marns film Born in East L.A.,
Gaspar de Alba identifies the rupture between the outsiders percep-
tion and the insiders self-identification as the main factor in initiat-
ing the rite of passage, and concludes:
The bridge between memory and destiny, like the distance between
insider and outsider perceptions of the self, is both a physical landscape
and a metaphysical terrain in which we perform that Chicano/a right
of passage, that barrio rite of identity called border consciousness.
(Gaspar de Alba, Rights 212)
As I will demonstrate in the pages that follow, Sor Juanas process

of acceptance and negotiation of her being a dangerous curiosity,
both for her passion for knowledge and for her homoerotic desire, is
narrativized by Gaspar de Alba as a series of rites of passage that, at
the end of the novel, despite the ultimatum, still remain as rights of
passage for her Sor Juana. As a prototype of the Chicana writer, Sor
Juanas nomadic desire unfolds as a series of moments of awareness
that impel her to re-member through oppositional aesthetic engage-
ments, either through the use of attire, appearance, and most impor-
tantly through the use of the written word.
Construction of the Body of the Chicana

Two elements are central to Gaspar de Albas mestiza bodies: first,
the incorporation of clothing and appearance to represent the body
at the cultural, social, spiritual and sexual levels; and second, an aes-
thetic effort to actualize sexual/textual desire through the study of
sounds, language, and metaphors. With these two concerns, Gaspar
de Alba emphasizes the role of appearance and speech in the dialec-
tics of Chican@ identity and desire.
Both discourses and lived experiences need to be taken into
account when considering an integral vision of the body. In this

regard, cultural critic Joanne Entwistle states: A study of the dressed

body . . . requires understanding of both the socially processed body
that discourses on dress and fashion shape, as well as the experien-
tial dimensions of embodiment wherein dress is translated into actual
bodily presentation (Dressed 35). In this regard, two concepts
are relevant to Gaspar de Albas mestiza bodies. On the one hand,
Entwistle describes getting dressed as a situated bodily practice which

is embedded within the social world and fundamental to micro social
order (Dressed 34; emphasis in the original). Being between the
body and the perceiver, clothing and body ornamentation mark the
boundary between self and other, individual and society, and thus
become an essential contribution to identity formation, to the notions
that others create about us by looking at our dressed bodies (37). On
the other hand, our awareness of the use of clothes, make-up, hair-
cuts, or accessories also shows our desire to take on a specific identity
and positioning. In this sense, Susan Kayser elaborates on the concept
of minding appearances:
Clothes mark the troubled boundary between the body and the
large social world, ambiguously and uneasily. Some of the uneasiness
associated with style and fashion probably stems from anxieties and
ambivalences about the body, consumer capitalism, garment labour
and material inequities. These anxieties and ambivalences . . . assume
form and become articulated through the process of style and fash-
ion. People have to mind their appearances. There is little rea-
son to believe this cannot be accomplished critically and creatively.
(Kayser 81)
Deena Gonz lez reminds us of the importance of appearance in

the conformation of Chicana identity in her classical study Chicana
Identity Matters: We must piece together color, speech, dress, and
many other markers to situate or locate one anothers identity
(Chicana Identity Matters 44). According to Gonz lez, as women
of color few Chicanas can mask their physical appearances to pass
as non-mixed race people (56). In her autobiographical writings,
Gaspar de Alba is concerned about her own appearance, since she
is whiter than her relatives, and can at some point pass as a per-
son of nonmixed race. As a radical thinker and creative writer, she is
concerned about how Chicanas mind their appearances. She con-
ceives style and fashion as essential sites of convergence that have to
do with anxieties, tensions, and struggles that may be directly related
to those of Chicana artists. Her Sor Juana, and her other female

characters, strategically mind their appearance during their process

of awareness of their being perceived as dangerous beasts.
Attire is present in Gaspar de Albas poems as a liminal space in
which women have to follow sociocultural norms, but that also offers
creativity. In her poem Hunchback, the main character is a bruja/
curanderaone of the beggars that live around the Cordoba bridge,
between El Paso and Ciudad Jurez. Gaspar de Albas beggars are

representations of the Chicana and atravesad@ border subjects. In her
poems, they form a collective with other mythical and mythohistori-
cal figuresthe Virgin of Guadalupe, Malinche, and la Llorona.
The hunchback woman has two lives. She is invisible during the
day, and becomes a bruja/curandera at night: By day her body is
invisible / under the loose calico skirt / and shapeless huipil, while
her attire allows her to take on a different identity at sunset, wear-
ing / white gauze and bracelets, black net of hair hanging / to her
knees (Beggar 14). Her knuckles bleed during the day while she
washes clothes. But at night she washes her neighbors dreams.
During the day, her huipil serves as a uniform that identifies her as
part of a social group, but also helps her hide her hunchback. But at
night, she loosens her hair and uses different accessories in order to
serve her community as dream-reader. Clothes and appearance are
for Gaspar de Alba essential components of the creative development
of the mestiza. She rehabilitates the figure of the bruja/curandera of
the borderlands by emphasizing her creativity and her control of her
own body and appearance. Furthermore, in Hunchback the dream-
reader becomes an icon for the female artist living in the borderlands.
Bedsheets are aired during the night as dreams are deciphered by the
curandera until the meanings grow bright / and solid as the knot in
her / lucky life (15).
The body of dreams of the borderlands in Gaspar de Albas
poems can be deciphered, dismembered, and re-membered only by
the curandera dream-reader. Part of her identity depends on her abil-
ity to control her attire as a situated bodily practice. Additionally,
dreams become essential discursive sites in the borderlands and for
the mestiza border subject, as I will discuss later.3
In Sor Juanas Second Dream, Gaspar de Albas study of the aesthet-
ics of appearance is much more complex than in her first poetry collec-
tion. Appearance has to do with desire, with cultural traditions, and
with transgenderism, both at the material and the discursive levels.
One of the events in Sor Juanas biography is the tournament in which
40 intellectuals at the palace of the viceroy tested the child prodigy
Juana Ins. In Sor Juanas Second Dream, Juana Ins becomes very

close to the Marquesa de Mancera the viceroys wife soon after

arriving at the palace. The palace and its world are characterized by
excess and the superabundance of furniture and adornments. Gaspar
de Alba is careful to highlight how Juana Ins learns how to follow
the strict fashion codes for women at the palace. Juana Ins describes
life in the palace as surprisingly superficial and yet excessively busy
(Sor Juanas Second Dream 23). She has to paint a mole on her face and

curl her hair when she plays the mandolin, or dress in silly costumes
(23) when she poses as a model during the Marquesas painting les-
sons. During the day, Juana Ins sees herself as enveloped in a blur of
skirts and fans (21), while at night she studies at the viceroys library,
and writes in the secret journal that she keeps in what she calls her
Pandoras box.4 As with the curandera in Hunchback, nighttime
offers relative freedom and is when the young Juana Ins can focus
on her own interests. It is the time when she educates herself, and it is
also the time when she can explore her sexuality through writing.
The tournament scene in the novel occurs when Juana Ins
is 19 years old, during her process of sexual awakening, which is
described in detail in the novel with a focus on gaze and appearance.
Juana Ins is molested and sexually abused by her uncle, whose icy
gaze resembles the way that men look at her at the palace. Even
Padre AntonioJuana Inss confessorshares this objectifying
male way of looking:
The black magnet of Padre Antonios eyes pulled Juana Inss gaze
away from the lace collar of her dress. Look at her ilustrsima, said
the priest. She knows she has wronged God and our mother Church,
do you not Juana Ins? Come here, child. We must speak of the future
of your soul. (Sor Juanas Second Dream 42)
Conversely, we have the exchange of looks that create desire and

attraction between the Marquesa and Juana Ins. One night, Juana
sees the Marquesa sleepwalking while whispering Juanas name. The
Marquesa is dressed in a thin see-through camisole. Through vision
and touch, attraction continues to emerge between Juana Ins and
the Marquesa in scenes in which Juana helps the Marquesa undress,
take a bath, and comb her hair. Every night, Juana Ins reflects upon
these scenes in her journal, asking herself about her strong attraction
to the Marquesa:
I cant understand why my hands want to linger on the lovely archi-

tecture of her body. Her flesh in the soapy water feels like the softest,

purest silk. She says I have the best fingers for washing hair, that she
likes the way my nails scrub her scalp and make it tingle. (30)
At this point, Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana develops her sense of

guilt, which is a consequence of her homoerotic sexual awakening.
This, as I mentioned, is one of Gaspar de Albas disidentifications
with Pazs Sor Juana. While Paz relates the nuns guilt with her

awareness of her lack of vocationsomething that Sor Juana herself
mentions in her Respuesta Gaspar de Alba presents Juana Inss
guilt as a result of her homoerotic desire, which goes against heter-
onormativy and the traditional education of women regarding mar-
riage and procreation.
Juana Inss sexual awakening is accompanied with a strong sense
of guilt when she masturbates the night before the tournament.
Masturbation, as in Gaspar de Albas poem Teyalis Dream, is
attached to a sense of guilt that women may have when they realize
that their sexual desire does not conform to traditional gender and
sexuality norms. What is relevant, though, throughout the novel, is
how Juana Inss sexual awakening coincides with her intellectual
awareness during the tournament. Appearance, both at the level of
the body and at the discursive level, is central to Gaspar de Albas
rendition of the scene.
Juana Ins chooses her attire for the occasion very carefully. With
sobriety and contention, she rejects the excessive adornment of women
at the palace, which she identifies as superficial and objectifying. She
wants her body to be invisible, so that all the attention can be on her
intellectual abilities:
She stashed her writing box under the bed, opened the wardrobe, and
gazed at the fine gowns, all gifts from la Marquesa, but she could not
wear anything that could stimulate the ugliness and distract her. In
this contest the only thing that mattered was her memory; her body
and face were inconsequential, and so she would wear the plainest
gown, the black one with the white lace collar and ivory buttons. (34)
Nevertheless, Juana Ins is aware that she is just a curiosity, and

that the tournament is just a circus where she will be exhibited as
a monstrous beastan erudite young woman that is the object of
mockery and scrutiny from the male position of sovereign intellec-
tual power. In this sense, the tournament becomes, in general terms,
a paradigmatic scene of the condition of women as objects of desire by
the male gaze, both voyeuristic and fetishistic. But more specifically,

the scene shows us Gaspar de Albas construction of a prototype of

the dangerous beasts, or women who are perceived as monsters for
being intellectuals.
Here, Gaspar de Alba is again disidentifying with Paz and his psy-
choanalytical approach to Sor Juanas life and works. Gaspar de Albas
focus on appearance is indeed in line with feminist psychoanalytical
cultural analysis. In her classic study of traditional objectifying use of

the camera in films, Laura Mulvey explains two kinds of scopophylia,
or the pleasure of the act of looking: fetishistic, the one that can
occur outside the linear time (22); and voyeuristic, which is related
to sadism, physical punishment, and/or forgiveness:
The woman as icon, displayed for the gaze and enjoyment of men, the
active controllers of the look, always threatens to evoke the anxiety it
originally signified. The male unconscious has two avenues of escape
through the castration anxiety: preoccupation with the re-enactment
of the original trauma (investigating the woman, demystifying her mys-
tery), counterbalanced by the devaluation, punishment or saving the
guilty object . . . or else complete disavowal of castration by the substitu-
tion of a fetish object or turning the represented figure itself into a fetish
so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous. (Mulvey 21)
The representation of the tournament in Sor Juanas Second Dream

is an example of both scopophylic looks. The academics enjoy watching
Sor Juana but are in fact threatened by the figure of a young woman
that may reach the power of knowledge, a power that is reserved for
men and that is naturalized as masculine in seventeenth century New
Spain. Furthermore, by rejecting the spectacular appearance of women
at the palace, Juana Ins desexualizes her figure in order to rebel
against gender dressing codes at the palace, and to protest against her
impossibility of becoming a scholar.
In this scene, subversion takes place both at the level of appearance
and at the level of discourse. Gaspar de Alba uses a technique that is
recurrent in the novel. Juana Inss interrogation starts in a realis-
tic way, but as the scene unfolds, the narrative includes fragments, in
italics, of an imaginary confession. Being attracted to the Marquesa,
Juana Ins confesses to having a strong sense of guilt. There are two
levels: the realistic narrative level and the imaginary or mental level,
which is equivalent to the scribblings that Juana Ins is accumulating
in her Pandoras box. Both narratives are filtered and combined by
the third-person narrator, which accounts for Gaspar de Albas theo-
retical subject of Chicana feminism.

During the tournament, Juana Ins exhibits her command over

issues related to the holy scriptures and her solid background in
Scholastic and Greco-Roman philosophy. The atmosphere gains in
intensity and the tensions end with the archbishop stopping the con-
versation right at the time when the young Jesuit Carlos de Sigenza y
Gngora and Juana Ins discuss Mayan philosophy. After the epi-
sode, and inspired by the young womans black attire, Padre Antonio

provides the solution to her situation by sending her to a convent
as a novice. This is the best option for many reasons. She is rebel-
lious about gender norms, she wants to learn and educate herself, she
wants to help the poor and the mestizos, and she rejects marriage and
procreation. Finally yet importantly, she is a criolla. Ironically, Padre
Antonios male gaze places her where she can develop her interests
more freely. Taking vows and taking on the habit represent her reac-
tion against being perceived as a curiosity, and her rejection of a life at
the palace that had no way of improvement. Using todays terminol-
ogy, we could say that Gaspar de Albas Juana Ins, by taking vows,
finds in the convent a free space within the patriarchal world of
seventeenth-century colonial Latin America.
Padre Antonios solution is practical, but nonetheless controver-
sial. He knows that Juana Ins does not have a religious vocation,
but thinks that this is her only chance to survive and to cultivate her
intellect. However, he does not know what we as readers know from
Juana Inss secret journal. The convent may promise to Juana Ins
a free space not only for her education, but also for her sexuality.
However, her decision is traumatic. After the tournament, Juana Ins
feels exhausted. She has been the center of attention and scrutiny.
And when she looks for consolation in the eyes of the Marquesa,
Juana Ins does not feel her support: She had expected la Marquesa
to felicitate her in some way: a kiss, an embrace, even a smile. But she
had not so much as looked at Juana Ins, and she felt paralyzed on
her bench, abandoned (41). After the Marquesas rejection, for Sor
Juana taking vows is an act of penitence, but nonetheless the begin-
ning of her quest for accepting her sexual identity.
Discourse on Dreams and Sexual Desire

What is Sor Juanas second dream for Gaspar de Alba? In her
Respuesta, the real Sor Juana explained that Primero Sueo (published
posthumously in 1692) was the only work that she wrote that was not
commissioned. Using the genre that in the seventeenth century could
be equivalent to what today is the personal essay, Primero Sueo is a

personal philosophical poem, a kind of proto-autohistoria-teora,

following Anzaldas terminology.5 Sor Juana narrates a dream that,
according to Octavio Paz, should not be read como el relato de un
xtasis real sino como la alegora de una experiencia que no puede
encerrarse en el espacio de una noche sino en el de las muchas que
pas sor Juana estudiando y pensando. La noche del poema es una
noche ejemplar, una noche de noches (Paz, Sor Juana 481). For

Gaspar de Alba, Sor Juanas second dream is a dream of dreams,
an allegory of experience regarding both intellectual and sexual/
homoerotic desire.
The nuns second dream materializes the night of her sexual
encounter with the Condesa. Her writings and other aesthetic arti-
facts that she hides in her box are symbolic instances of dreams. Sor
Juanas second dream is, in this sense, everything that she is accumu-
lating in her Pandoras box notes, correspondence, drawings, parti-
tures, and most of all her secret journal.6
Finally, the novel is full of different dreams retold by either Sor
Juana or the narrative voice/theoretical subject. In this sense, Sor
Juanas second dream may be the novel in its entirety, and its actual-
ization in our reading process as a noche de noches, or dream of
dreams. In this sense, Gaspar de Alba considers dreams as alternative
forms of knowledge, and goes back to a pre-Freudian understanding
of dreams as including nightmares, visions, reveries, and premonitory
thoughts.7 The novel tries to get closer to what Sor Juana could have
understood as dreams, and how they were conceived in the Spanish
Colonial Baroque.8
In her reinvention of Sor Juana, then, Gaspar de Alba aims at a
fictional recreation of what the nuns second dream would have been,
as a kind of exemplary narrative, following Pazs analysis of Primero
Sueo. To make Sor Juana into the symbolic foremother for Chicanas,
Gaspar de Alba disidentifies with Paz, the Master of the Game, by
framing her reinvention within Chicanass notions about myth mak-
ing. Carla Trujillos words on reinventing the Virgin of Guadalupe
may serve as an example. Just as the Virgin of Guadalupe is as much
ours, as Chicana lesbians, as anyone elses (Virgen 227), Sor Juana,
a mythohistorical icon for women writers, can also be reconfigured
following dangerous beasts poetics.
Let us look closely at the night of nights, the night in which
the felicitous sexual encounter between Sor Juana and Mara Luisa,
Condesa de Paredes, can be interpreted as a possible second dream
in the novel. Sor Juana is staying at the Counts palace after return-
ing from her mothers funeral in Panoayn. This night represents

one climax in Sor Juanas sexuality, understood as a continuum,

following Adrienne Rich, or as a performative semiosic process as
explained by Teresa de Lauretis.9 De Lauretiss notions illuminate the
connection between the dressed body, the dressed text, and sexuality
discourse in Sor Juanas Second Dream. She explains that sexual iden-
tity conforms through a series of habits, and habit-changes (309).
Those habits arise, according to her, in the semiotic juncture of inner

and outer worlds (xix). In the night of nights with the Condesa,
what Gaspar de Alba is emphasizing is the effect of both what covers
the body, and what adorns the text on the contingent conformation
of sexual/intellectual desire. The night of nights recreates a central
habit-formation scene that refers to Sor Juanas identity as both a
lesbian, and a writer/scholar. The act of taking vows and dressing
the habit is what Gaspar de Alba links with contemporary Chicanas
process of coming out as lesbians and/or of becoming writers and
scholars.
In her exploration of her own sexuality, Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana
has experienced the Marquesas rejection, as well as some turbulent
and incomplete encounters with novices and servants. Appearance
and frictions provoke sexual arousal, but desire goes beyond physi-
cal contact, and has to do more with senses, affects, and the memory
of the body. A clear example occurs when Sor Juana describes her
arousal during an Ash Wednesday ceremony. Fascinated by the deep
olive of Felipas skin (138), the nun gets aroused when she uses her
fingertips to remove the ashes from the novices eyebrows. This is
what Sor Juana writes in her journal:
Now, I sit transcribing this confession and feel (it embarrasses me even
to write it down), I feel as though Ive been intimate with Felipa just
because I grazed her skin, admired her hands, stood close to smell the
starch in her veil. May god and la Marquesa forgive me for this weak-
ness. (Sor Juanas Second Dream 139)
The first time she meets the Condesa, Sor Juana scrutinizes her,
studying her body and her appearance meticulously to the point of
objectification and idealization:
She looks like a queen. The entire locutory was ablaze with her pres-
ence. Beside her the Viceroy looked like a page . . .
Charmed as I was by his attentions, it was his lady I wanted to
engage. She was dressed in a white brocade gown trimmed with golden
chains, her dark locks covered in a gold filigree mantilla, a string of
rubies trailing down her neck. A rosary of black pearls was wrapped

around one wrist, an ivory fan dangled from the other. And her eyes,
the color of smoky quartz, were like lodestones to my own. (175)
Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana, as I already mentioned, has a voyeuris-

tic and fetishistic way of looking at her lovers that is traditionally
ascribed to the male gaze. But what the novel is about is the quest for
the coincidence of desires, in acts of desire that performatively create

a series of habits and habit-changes. This is the perversity of lesbian
desire in the novel, the strategic positioning of Sor Juana as a voyeur
and as a fetishistic active objectifying looker. Gaspar de Alba here
dismantles the traditional duality active/masculine versus passive/
feminine gaze.
The night of nights starts with both characters studying each
others looks, and with Sor Juana scrutinizing the figure of the
Condesa:
Juana had to swallow before she could speak. Mara Luisa was wear-
ing yellow damask with a low-cut black velvet bodice that accentuated
the narrowness of her waist, and puffy black sleeves slashed with yel-
low satin. The bun at the nape of her neck was dressed in a fine gold
netting and long gold hoops dangled from her earlobes. Behind her
stood don Toms, beaming his gap-toothed smile. (Sor Juanas Second
Dream 299)
Mara Luisa complains that she cannot see Sor Juanas eyes due to
the mourning veil. During dinner, the Condesa manages to convince
Sor Juana to remove it. Minding their appearance is a first step.
The second is to confront the discourse about faithfulness and mar-
riage. In a conversation with the Conde, Sor Juana learns about the
lack of attraction between him and the Condesa. Juana spends the
rest of the night talking and drinking with the Conde, who becomes
her compadre. She feels free to exhibit her masculine side. For
the first time, she can talk to a man face to face at the same level of
power, not in the feigned quality of the locutorio, where she was
nothing more than a performer for her guests (304).
When Sor Juana returns to her room, the Condesa appears in a
dreamlike scene, and their sexual encounter occurs while Sor Juana
recites fragments of her Litany in the Subjunctivea poem that
Gaspar de Alba writes for this occasion, and that also serves as the epi-
logue of the novel. Their climax occurs mainly through visual stimula-
tion and poetic language.
Both poetic language and affects are also explored in Emma Prezs
Gulf Dreams, as I examined in the previous chapter. In Prezs novel,

senses are crucial links between mind and body, and create memo-
ries. In the conformation of the anonymous she-narrators identity,
continuous accumulation of sensorial and affective experiences will
create connections among memory fragments. These connections,
according to Prezs theories, have the potential ability to reconstruct
history from an alternative stance that may question dominant, colo-
nizing ideologies and that may write Chicanas into history.

Therefore, as far as sexual desire is concerned, both novels reject
traditional definitions of fixed erotogenic areas; most importantly,
Prez and Gaspar de Alba emphasize the fact that sexual encounters
do not only occur at the level of materiality and the body but also at
the level of discourse and speech. The She-narrator in Gulf Dreams
describes one of her few felicitous sexual encounter: Intimacies of
the flesh achieved through words . . . With her, I learned to make love
to women without a touch. I craved intimate, erotic dialogue(Prez,
Gulf Dreams 52). Contrary to Prezs focus on language as the origin
of desire and desiring subjects, and on writing as an obsessive act that
is both painful and healing, Gaspar de Alba adds poetic discourse as
an essential and productive link between sexual desire and writing.10
As opposed to Cherre Moragas approach in Giving Up the Ghost,
where the dream is set within the parameters of experimental theater
outside of history, Gaspar de Alba and Prez include dreams as valid
discursive sites for the reconstruction of collective memory and history.
According to Paz, Sor Juanas Primero Sueo is una alegora del acto
de conocer (Sor Juana 498; emphasis in original). The nuns second
dream for Gaspar de Alba is the allegory of the act of knowing her
own sexuality, an allegory that includes textual and poetic pleasure in a
process that, being Sor Juana the foremother of Chicana lesbian femi-
nism, has to do with the reconfiguration of sexuality for Chicanas.
Conclusion
As I discussed earlier, Gaspar de Alba hypothesizes that Sor Juana
was the victim of an ultimatum that came as a result of her gradual
loss of support at the palace and the church. Her successful sexual
encounter with the Condesa takes place the night that Sor Juana is
informed that she and her husband are returning to Spain, and that
a new viceroy is on his way. Sor Juana is forced to give up her writ-
ings and her lover. It is an imposition from both the political and
the ecclesiastical systems. But in Gaspar de Albas reinvention, Sor
Juana still remains as a valid myth for Chicana lesbians and atrave-
sada writers and scholars. She discovers, explores, accepts, and enjoys

at different times her lesbian desire, and gives in only to the immov-
able impositions of patriarchy. Sor Juanas rites of passage toward
border consciousness, both as a lesbian and as a writer, include her
infatuations with the Marquesa and the Condesa, as well as her learn-
ing process through both her eclectic readings and her dialogues with
regular visitors to the convent of San Jeronimo.11
Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana is the prototype of the Chicana lesbian

scholar of the 1990s, a decade during which several achieved privi-
leged positions in academia. Her Sor Juana contrasts with Moragas
Marisa in Giving Up the Ghost. Marisas relationship with Amalia fails,
but the play challenges the audience to reflect upon the challenges
of lesbian life for Chicanas in the 1980s, as explained by Yarbro-
Bejarano:
For Marisa, her pleasure and belief in sex as salvation are constrained
by her experience of homophobia, racism, sexism and controlling het-
erosexism. By incorporating pain, difficulty and failure in the reimag-
ining of a sexual and social world, Ghost represents a non-redemptive
vision that obliges the reader or spectator to account for the conflictive
social and cultural contexts providing the arena for sexual experience.
(Wounded 92)
Published in the early 1990s, Prezs Gulf Dreams also depicts an

impossible relationship between the She-narrator and the young
woman. Nevertheless, as I examined in chapter 3, the narrator insists
on the healing potential of her being a cuentista (storyteller). The
act of writing and telling ones own story, or the story Chicana in this
case makes people gather to release transgression (Gulf Dreams 74).
Listening/reading and speaking/writing about ones own memories
and also about each others memories how each cuentista dismem-
bers and re-members her own stories and the stories of others are
essential ways to confront vulnerability and internalized oppression.
As cuentistas/writers, the protagonists in Giving and Gulf Dreams
are ultimately offering useful testimonies that may empower readers
and audiences, or at least incite them to think and act.
In contrast, Gaspar de Albas ambitious project in Sor Juanas
Second Dream emphasizes the power of language and poetic dis-
course as part of the construction of the story Chicana in different
ways. Gaspar de Albas figuration of the Chicana writer/scholar as a
modern-day Sor Juana insists on the values of aesthetic creativity and
sexual desire as mutually enabling fictions that have the potential to
create alternative forms of knowledge, and to construct a new opposi-
tional language/codex for Chicanas a Chicana second dream.


Part III
Global Interventions


Juncture
Compostura

O ne of the many projects that Gloria Anzalda left unfinished was
a book on composition and identity. One of the chapters was going to
be titled compostura. In her 1996 interview with Andrea Lunsford,
she described her project and explained the concept:
I have about four different chapters of notes and rough drafts that
have to do with the writing process, with rhetoric and composition.
Im also taking it into how one composes ones life, how one creates an
addition to ones house, how one makes sense of the coincidental and
random things that happen in life, how one gives it meaning. So its
my composition theme, compostura. In fact, thats the title of one of
the chapters. For me, compostura used to mean being a seamstress;
I would sew for other people. Compostura means seaming together
fragments to make a garment which you wear, which represents
you, your identity and reality in the world. (Anzalda, Interviews/
Entrevistas 256)
This notion of weaving and stitching together multifarious fragments

and elements to express oneself is explored and metaphorized in dif-
ferent ways by radical Chicanas as part of their approach to artistic
expression, identity formation and aesthetic education.
Compostura insists on the idea of assemblage and re-membering
that lies underneath the Coyolxauhquian body/text metaphor, but
it also emphasizes the active role of the artist as seamstress and as
part of a community. It is not so much about the mental process of
re-membering but about communication and making community.
However, in Anzaldas thought, compostura also refers to intercon-
nectedness as a goal in the path of conocimiento: Like consciousness,
conocimiento is about relatedness to self, others, worlds (570). It is

part of Anzaldas metaphysics of interconnectedness as explained

by AnaLouise Keating:
Positing a universal commonality, she can insist that despite the

many differences among us we are all interconnected. As she explains
in a 1991 interview, she believes that we are almas afines, or kin-
dred spirits, and share an interconnectedness that could serve as

an unvoiced category of identity, a common factor in all life forms.
(Keating, Forging 521)
Norma Alarcn takes the metaphor on to a different theoretical

level when she writes about weaving alliances in order to enable
visibility and agency to Chicanas and women of color. Moreover, she
defines the representation of Anzaldas New Mestiza conscious-
ness as a texture or weave within her conceptualization of how
Chicanas can play an active part in conjugating different locations
and subjectivities (Cognitive Desires 266).
In this context, Sandra Cisneross figurations of the Chicana
show the pleasures and conflicts of interconnectedness in coali-
tional politics. In her essay A Woman of No Consequence: Una
Mujer Cualquiera, Cisneros explains her vision of interconnected-
ness through her personal narrative about writing and her feminism.
After describing her moment of revelation in the conversation about
houses in graduate school, she continues to explain her motiva-
tions for writing and her decision to become a spokesperson for the
oppressed:
I dont want to be silent again. I want to make up for all those years
I was too afraid to speak, and I want to speak for those still afraid to
speak. I want to write to change the world with my writing, nothing
less. I want to teach the world to be tolerant and compassionate, but
in real life I am neither tolerant nor compassionate towards those who
harm me, I am not tolerant towards those who would kill me, I am not
tolerant towards those who prey on the weak of society, the powerless,
the oppressed. (Woman 82)
Cisneros is aware of her responsibilities as a spokesperson and edu-

cator within Chican@ and Latin@ communities, and in society at large.
She emphasizes tolerance and compassion towards the disenfranchised,
and reacts against oppression. Later in the essay, she shares her views
about acting locally and thinking globally in her reflections upon her
friend Jasna, a translator of her works to Serbo-Croatian, who was in
Sarajevo during the Balkan Wars of the 1990s. When Cisneros was

C O M P O S T U R A 137
holding a peace vigil in San Antonio, with no news from her friend,
she had another moment of revelation:
If I am holding a peace vigil for Bosnia then it is only logical that I

cannot be fighting with my mother, or with that artist across town, or
with anyone for that matter. If I want peace in Sarajevo, then I must
work at being a peaceful person here. I must be peace. I must work

towards speaking, writing, acting in peace towards everyone I come
into contact with within my world. (A Woman of No Consequence
84; emphasis mine)
Through the I of the girl narrator, Cisneros explores intercon-

nectedness on multiple levels in her fictional world. For example,
Esperanza in The House on Mango Street identifies with Minerva, a
battered adolescent mother who is also a writer: She lets me read
her poems. I let her read mine. She is always sad like a house on
fire always something wrong. She has many troubles, but the big
one is her husband who left and keeps leaving (Cisneros, House
845). Female bonding reveals to both the girl and the reader gen-
der and sexuality issues that prevail in their socialization and identity
formation. Furthermore, Cisneros shows a tendency to create bonds
amongst writers and artists in her fiction, highlighting the empower-
ing effects of creativity.
Nevertheless, interconnectedness among women implies not only
felicitous identification but also conflicts that are necessary for over-
coming oppression and developing an oppositional consciousness.
This complexity is present in Caramelo in Lalas relationship with the
Awful Grandmother. Their conflict is appreciated in their imaginary
dialogue when she is narrating the story of the family. The dialogue
happens in the girls imagination, at the time her grandmother is still
alive but does not speak anymore. The metanarrative discussion pres-
ents a conflict of perspectives: who has the right to speak about oth-
ers. Lalas narrative cannot be faithful to the real story, as the Awful
Grandmother repeatedly complains. A good example is Lalas nar-
rative about her grandparents love story. Her perspective is contem-
porary and feminist when she turns to womens sexuality issues. The
Awful Grandmother signaled in the text by bold font interrupts to
complain, accusing Lala of biasing the story:
So naive was she about her body, she did not know how many orifices
her body had, nor what they were for. Than as now, the philosophy
of sexual education for women was the less said the better. So why

did this same society throw rocks at her for what they deemed reckless
behavior and their silence was equally reckless?
Why do you constantly have to impose your filthy politics?
Cant you tell just the facts?
And what kind of story would this be with just facts?
The truth!
It depends on whose truth you are talking about. The same story
becomes a different story depending on who is telling it. Now, will you

allow me to proceed?
And whos stopping you? (Caramelo 1556)
Lala makes it clear from the beginning that, at the time she decides
to tell the story of her grandmother, her narrative becomes the story
of her own life too. Her position as narrator is also a privileged one,
in the sense that she becomes an observer and also a participant,
reinventing both her and her grandmothers lives. The conflict of
perspectives has the power to create common narratives and cul-
tural discourses from a feminocentric perspective. As a prelude to
chapter 5, this example gives us a taste of how Cisneross figuration
of the Chicana in Caramelo presents interconnectedness and weav-
ing alliances within the context of a positive but tensional vision of
difference.
I use the term interconnectedness when Chicanas are talking
about cohabitation and weaving alliances, as opposed to intecon-
nectivity, which refers to intersectionality in the sense that Chela
Sandoval, drawing in part on Chicana feminist thought, conceives
differential consciousness as part of a set of five skills semiotics,
deconstruction, meta-ideologizing, democratics, and differential
consciousness that are part of a methodology of emancipation
(Sandoval 2).
The construction of the narrative through acts of compostura
from the Latin compositura, which also means to convene is a
metaphor that functions at different levels life, identity, text, story,
community and intersects with all of the topics that I find at the
junctures of dangerous beasts poetics polycentricity, collective cre-
ativity, nepantlism, antiacademicism, and transdisciplinarity. Most
importantly, as we will see in the next two chapters, compostura and
interconnectedness both serve to explain a Chicana worldview and to
reflect on how Chicanas can tackle issues of global justice.

Chapter 5
Weaving Texts and Selves in Sandra

Cisneross Caramelo
I n the earliest reviews of Sandra Cisneross long awaited novel

Caramelo (2002), critics highlighted the novels transnationalism as
a feature that would add originality and would broaden the scope of
Chican@ literature. Ellen McCracken saw the novel as a nomadic text
that explores the intersection of hybridity and memory and the posi-
tion of Chicanas as exotic others (McCracken, Postmodern 3). For
Manuel Martn-Rodrguez, Caramelos transnationalism complicated
the tension between history and fiction, what he called f(r)iccin
histrica (Puro Cuento 66). Two round trips inform the chronolog-
ical plot: ChicagoMexico CityAcapulcoChicago, and ChicagoSan
AntonioChicago. The novel traces Lalas family trips to Mexico to
visit her grandparents, and the Reyes familys changes of residence in
the United States. For critics, transnationalism is in the itinerant qual-
ity of the Reyes family, and in their interaction with immigrants in the
multicultural neighborhoods where they live. It is also in the assem-
blage and reassemblage of elements that belong to different cultures,
mostly Mexican, Hispanic, and US popular culture, but not restricted
to them.
In a recent and more comprehensive analysis, Jos David Saldvar
considers Caramelo a failed effort to write the Chican@ totalizing trans-
national novel, placing Cisneross book at the level of other failed
attempts to offer an all-encompassing view of a national culture in
Latin American letters: Gabriel Garca Mrquezs Cien aos de soledad
(1967), Carlos Fuentess Terra Nostra (1976), and others. By show-
ing the itinerary of the Reyes family, Caramelo tries to fictionalize a
story that may be representative of the Mexican American experience
from the 1950s to the beginning of the twenty-first century. But as

the complicated f(r)iccinnot only between fiction and history,

but also between fictional and historiographical discoursesreveals,
both the story and the history in Caramelo are idiosyncratic. The novel
follows Emma Prezs concept of embodied memory as history in a
special way. The narrative unfolds from the first scene as the symbolic
process of corporeal/textual embodiment of Celaya, the Chicana girl
narrator. As we will examine later, Celaya is not in the family pic-

ture taken during their vacation in Acapulco that is described in the
opening section. Her gradual embodiment throughout the novel and
the reading process reflects the f(r)ictional embodiment of the story
Chicana.
In Prezs Gulf Dreams, constructing memory as history implies
considering the body as the point of departure of the fictional text
as history, focusing especially on desire and the validity of fantasy
and the imagination. The text (con)fuses history and storythe word
historia in Spanish can mean history or story. Caramelo, as opposed
to Gulf Dreams, does not focus on desire and affects. Cisneros is more
interested in intercultural communication and exchange, and she there-
fore situates her poetics closer to Ana Castillos and Gaspar de Albas.
Caramelo is the narrative of a desire to establish communication with
the other, both felicitously and contentiously, and with tolerance for
interruption and disagreement. Embodiment becomes a textual strat-
egy to both engage and educate the reader with an aesthetic educa-
tion that exposes the double binds of intercultural communication.
However, aesthetic education does not try to balance contradicting
imperatives, in the sense that Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak explores in
An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization (2011). Caramelos
failure as a totalizing enterprise is in fact a deliberate and playful dis-
memberment and reconfiguration of traditional narrative strategies in
fiction, historiography, and academic discourse in order to promote
an aesthetic education that values puro cuento. Cisneros does not
aim at balancing or resolving the double binds between fiction and
history, but at playing with their contradictions to create a story that is
engaging both entertaining and instructive but unreliable both
suspicious and contentious.
Paul Jay points out the three debates that shape the transnational
turn in literary studies in the twenty-first century. First, the false
assumption that globalization is not historically grounded, and that it
is exclusively a contemporary phenomenon: It makes much more sense
to take a historical view in which globalization is dated as beginning
in at least the sixteenth century and covering a time span that includes
the long histories of imperialism, colonization, decolonization, and

S A N D R A C I S N E R O S S CARAM ELO 141
postcolonialism (Jay 3). Second, there is the debate between those

who consider the term transnational as purely economic and not about
culture. This is, for him, another false assumption that has to do with
an erroneous approach to agency, as well as a false consideration of
homogeneity and uniformity regarding cultural exchange:
Agency has more to do with the intelligent and imaginative negotia-

tion of cross-cultural contact than with avoiding such contact. Agency
from this point of view is a function of that negotiation, not its victim.
And, clearly, agency is variously enabled and circumscribed by gender.
(Jay 3)
Finally, Jay argues for a complication of the center-periphery

model in the study of globalization and culture: globalization is
characterized by complex back and forth flows of people and cultural
forms in which the appropriation and transformation of things
music, film, food, fashion raise questions about the rigidity of the
center-periphery model (3).
My study of Caramelo in this chapter, although contextualized
within dangerous beasts poetics, can also be framed within these debates
about transnationalism, globalization, and culture. Exploring the novel
in close relation to Cisneross previous works, I argue that, in her fic-
tional world, the category Chicana writer merges with the figuration
of the child to create a disruptive conceptual persona through which
Cisneros builds her particular poetics. Her contentious and hocicona
figuration of the Chicana as a dangerous beast rejects traditional dis-
courses and defends a construction of the story Chicana that reflects
the rich texture of contradictions and tensions of Chicano/Latino cul-
ture, and advocates for both interconnectedness cohabitation and
weaving alliances and interconnectivity intersectionality and dif-
ferential consciousness.
The Figuration of the Chicana Girl / Writer

In Fall 2002 new works of fiction by Chicana writers coincided with
the publication of the third edition of This Bridge Called My Back, as
well as its sequel, This Bridge We Call Home.1 None of the titles, how-
ever, received more attention than Caramelo. As in her well-known
The House on Mango Street (1984) and some of her short stories,
Caramelo is (apparently) narrated from the perspective of a young
girl, a fifteen-year-old Chicana named Celaya, or Lala. By choosing
this name for the main character and narrator, Cisneros emphasizes

Celayas location as a critical turning point within the story of her

family, and extensively, a symbolic moment of consciousness that is
identified with second-generation Mexican Americans. It refers to the
Battle of Celaya (April 1915), where Francisco Villa lost to lvaro
Obregns Carrancista troops. This battle is considered a decisive
turning point in the Mexican Revolution, and the beginning of
Villas decline. From a feminist perspective, the reference to Celaya

as her fathers Waterloo signals a point of departure from a tra-
ditional, monolithic, and male-centered perspective, that is, having
male figures like Pancho Villa as role models within Chicano culture.
Moreover, it also accounts for the presence of a feminist theoretical
subject as the main character and narrator.
In Caramelo, Chican@ culture is presented gradually through
a process of transculturation that includes elements mostly from
Mexican and Anglo American mainstream and popular cultures. The
central axis of the novel seems to be Mexican culture, as illustrated
by placing the Zcalo in Mexico Citythat city in the middle of the
world, halfway between here and there, between nowhere (Cisneros,
Caramelo 162). However, the centrality of Mexican culture is not
presented in a traditional center versus periphery way. Mexico and
Mexico City are a nepantla-like transitional center of the different
geographical and memorial itineraries that the protagonist and her
family undertake throughout the narrative. Here Cisneros compli-
cates the center versus periphery model of transnationalism from
a feminist nomadic perspective that resembles Ana Castillos and
Emma Prezs, but that does not emerge out of sadness or a need to
confront ghosts. Rather, the novel proposes to accept itinerancy, to
endure the flow and accumulation of cultural artifacts that it entails,
and to value the role of the family as a protective community dur-
ing displacement. Cisneross initial intention is to offer a tribute to
her father and his story, as she states in a 2003 radio interview about
Caramelo (Sandra Cisneros), and Lalas conversations with her
relatives, especially her grandmotherAwful Grandmother in the
novelwill be central in the narrative.
Cisneros creates a character, Lala/Celaya, that is mainly fictional
even though it is modeled after her own mentality and personal life.
The author rejects the idea of reading her texts as autobiographical
and reclaims her position as a cuentista:
They dont understand Im not writing autobiography. What Im

doing is writing true stories. Theyre all stories I lived or witnessed

or heard; stories that were told to me. I collected those stories and I
arrange them in an order so they would be clear and cohesive. Because
in real life there is no order. (Cisneros, On the Solitary Fate)
In addition to Lala as the narrating I, there is an implicit author

or authorial I in control of the narrative. Its intervention is clear
to the reader at both the diegetic and the extradiegetic levels of the

narrative. The novel is divided into 86 sections or vignettes. However,
it starts with a nonpaginated Disclaimer, followed by an initial sec-
tion that is not numbered but is part of the storyline. After the last
section and the word Fin, there is a vignette called Piln, 2 followed
by a chronology of historical events. It might be said that the narra-
tive is wrapped up like a caramelo with all these pre- and postdi-
egetic addenda.
At the diegetic level, there are citations introducing the vignettes.
Sometimes, they are real songs by Agust n Lara: the original, the
translation, or both. Other times, these citations are fictional frag-
ments from a personal narrative that may be excerpts from Lalas
diary. Citations add up to the presence of abundant footnotes, and
footnotes to the footnotes with ethnographic explanations. They are
characterized by the presence of an authorial I that makes com-
ments on the fictional world of the novel and the historical period
it is set in. Together with the chronology, the footnotes build an
idiosyncratic view of history that fuses with the partial perspective of
Lalas personal story. Here Cisneros concurs with Jays approach to
the transnational text. Her transnational view on Chicano culture is
historically informed, and rejects the idea that globalization is just a
present ahistorical phenomenon.
In between the Disclaimer and the first numbered section, an initial
vignette stands on its own as the threshold to the storyline, introducing
Part One. Recuerdo de Acapulco. It focuses on a family portrait of
the Reyes family taken in this city. The picture activates remembrances
and launches the narrative. It enables the theoretical subject, Lala/
authorial I, a point of entry into the story of the Reyes family. As
in other prominent works in Chican@ literature Arturo Islass family
saga The Rain God (1984) and Norma Cants fictional autobiography
titled Cancula (1995) a family portrait serves as a memory activa-
tor, and the main characters remembrances build a relevant episode
in the history of Chicanas and Chicanos. The photograph is a kind of
Proustian madeleine that immediately leads readers to an exploration of
the hybrid baggage of the Chicano family heritage.

In the context of my analysis, what is crucial about the photograph

is, curiously enough, the absence of Lala:
Im not here. Theyve forgotten about me when the photographer walk-

ing along the beach proposes a portrait, un recuerdo, a remembrance
literally. No one notices Im off myself building sand houses . . . They
wont realize Im missing until the photographer delivers the portrait

to Catitas house, and I look at it for the first time and ask, When
was this taken? Where?
Then, everyone realizes the portrait is incomplete. Its as if I didnt
exist. Its as if Im the photographer walking along the beach with the
tripod camera on my shoulder askingUn recuerdo? A souvenir? A
memory? (Caramelo 4)
Is the girl building sand houses, or is she really the photographer?

The scene signals the merging of the infant character Lala and
the authorial I, or photographer. In doing so, Cisneros creates a
complex figuration that may serve as the feminist controlling agent
of the narrative. On the one hand, this narrative strategy invites the
reader to (re)locate the girl: to incorporate her infant body into the
picture is the act of recognition that accounts for her perspective in
her family story. By extension, this functions as the means to inscribe
women, Chicanas, into history. On the other hand, the collusion
of the voices of both the writer and the narrating character exposes
the unreliability of the narration. In Caramelo, both the girl narrat-
ing I and the authorial I are present as disruptive conceptual
personae, and both remain contestable, always at stake, as any other
perspective in the novel. Cisneross approach to polycentricity has to
do with ambiguities and playfulness as in Castillos Mixquiahuala,
defending, as I mentioned, the validity of fiction and the imagination
to construct the story Chicana.
Lalas eldest brother Rafa, for example, gives a different version
of the episode in their discussion towards the end of the narrative.
During the thirtieth marriage anniversary of the parents, the same
black and white picture sits on the shelves of the living room of
the first house owned by the Reyes. Rafa opposes Lalas version.
According to him, what really happened was that Lala got mad and
refused to be in the picture. However, Lalas memories make her
conclude that, during the time she was growing up, she tended to be
forgotten: This is the family photo from our trip to Acapulco when
we were little. But Im not here, I was off to the side making sand
castles, and nobody bothered to call me when the photographer came
by. Same as always, they forgot all about me (Caramelo 423). Her

comments are illuminating as for the meaning of her absence from

the picture. By extension, Lala refers to the invisibility of Chicanas
in the normative historical picture. On his part, Rafa points out
a fact that is emphasized throughout the novel: Chicanas absence
from history accounts for their strong-willed rejection to accept the
authority of a traditionally male-centered discourse. Despite the
unreliability of memory, both Lalas and Rafas versions may be valid

to present a Chicana girl character who refuses to conform, and pre-
fers to develop her creativity by building sand castles.
Lalas initial absence from the family portrait, and her merging
with the authorial I are crucial points of departure in our reading
process, a process of incorporation/recognition of the girl/writers
figuration throughout the narrative. In Caramelo, more than in the
rest of Sandra Cisneross fictional world, the merging of child and
the authorial I creates an abstract entity or theoretical writing sub-
ject that allows for the elaboration of a particular dangerous beasts
poetics.
Why does Cisneros insist on the figuration of a Chicana writer
as a child? Following Claudia Casta edas analysis of the child fig-
ure in contemporary cultural and theoretical discourses, I argue that
the child/writer in Caramelo is a figuration, a conceptual personae
with a double force: constitutive effect and generative circulation
(Castaeda 3). It enables a theoretical subject position from which
to constantly reinvent Chican@ culture. Rather than just a charac-
ter, the child becomes an abstract entity through which to convey
the effect of a specific configuration of knowledges, practices, and
power (Castaeda 4); that is, the specific configuration of Chican@
culture from a feminist perspective.
The figuration of the Chicana girl is a central narrative strategy in
Cisneross writing. As the poetic persona, the girl appears already in
her autobiographical poetry collection My Wicked Wicked Ways (1987),
a revised version of her 1978s MFA Creative Writing thesis. Woman
Hollering Creek (1991) also includes seven short stories from the per-
spective of the Chicana girl in its first section My Lucy Friend Who
Smells Like Corn. However, the strategy consolidates in The House
on Mango Street, narrated by a writer-to-be girl called Esperanza.
The abundant literature on Mango Street has acknowledged
Esperanzas position as a fictional role model for Chicanas since the
mid-1980s. In the 1970s, the female child narrating I had already
appeared in Isabella R oss Victuum (1976). Even though Francisco
Lomel studied the novel as early as 1980, R oss work remained
unknown, and was not the object of attention for critics who focused

on the canonical texts of Chicano letters. Furthermore, the Chican@

quest for self-identity found in this novel was not as radical as the
more experimental and risky incursions of Chicanas into poetry, cre-
ative essay, or theater, as exemplified by the early poetry collections of
Ana CastilloOtro canto (1977), The Invitation (1979), and Women
are not Roses (1984), Alma Luz VillanuevaBloodroot (1977), and
Mother, May I? (1978), or Cherre Moragas Loving in the War Years

(1983), and Giving Up the Ghost (1986). It seems that the traditional
narrative conventions of the novel, that is, the bildungsroman sub-
genre, precluded the development of a more politically engaged dis-
course that challenged the patriarchal establishment of the Chicano
Movement, and addressed the issues concerning the situation and
accountability of Chicanas. Lack of circulation, critical attention, and
the constraints of the genre added up to the fact that Chicana femi-
nist thought was still in its initial stages of development (Garca).
It is in this context that Esperanza accounted for Chicanas hope
to change the picture in the 1980s.3 Since the publication of Mango
Street, critics emphasize the emergence of a feminist perspective that
was absent from classic texts of Chicano male literature. Eduardo
Elas highlights Cisneross introduction of the female perspective in
the Chicano bildungsroman (Elas 80). Erlinda Gonzales-Berry and
Tey Diana Rebolledo analyze Cisneross rejection to comply with
traditional female bildungsromane (110). In this context, Mart n-
Rodrguez emphasizes Cisneross feminist rereading of Riveras work,
and her interest in establishing a female-to-female tradition that
accounts for the feminization of the folkloric repertoire in Chican@
literature and culture (Martn-Rodrguez, Life 77).
The child protagonist is present in works that became classics of the
Renaissance of Chicano literature, such as Jos Antonio Villarreals
Pocho, Rudolfo Anayas Bless Me, Ultima, and Toms Riveras . . . y no
se lo trag la tierra. It also appears in the early Renaissance Chicano
poetry, and Sabine Ulibarrs short stories in Tierra Amarilla:
Cuentos de Nuevo Mxico (1965). Donaldo W. Urioste analyzes these
works and concludes that the child protagonist is a metaphor for the
Chicano people, becoming an appropriate vehicle to display a moment
of consciousness in the evolution from innocence to experience. It is
a narrative device that is used to suggest urgent necessity for change
within a structure or society they perceive to be overtly dehuman-
ized, bigoted, and oppressive (186).
Uriostes views may well be the basis for further critical analysis
of the child figure in works by Chicana writers that incorporate a
feminocentric perspective. Critics consider girl narrators as part of a

Chicana revisionist agenda. However, in Mango Street there is more

than a simple rereading of these works: there is a whole reinvention
of the child narrator as a feminist narrative strategy. First, the strat-
egy signals the emergence of a female narrating I in control of the
narrative, as analyzed by Annie Eysturoy in connection with other
works by Chicanas also from the mid-1980s. Second, it accounts for
the girls process of identity formation being equaled to the readers

reading process of meaning formation, as noted by Manuel Mart n-
Rodrguez in his study on Chicano readership and audience:
[I]n reading about a boy or a girl discovering his/her own world, the
reader is allowed to share in the excitement of those discoveries, gain-
ing understanding as the character/narrator does so. Values and norms
are not taken for granted in this type of texts, as they may sometimes
be in those with an adult protagonist, but rather they are to be learned
and experienced by/with the character him/herself. (Life 115)
Drawing on reader-response theories, and considering transcul-

tural texts as primarily intended for readers that do not belong to
the children/narrators group (195), Mart n-Rodrguez highlights
how this strategy goes beyond the readers identification with the
figure of the author scrutinizing her childhood. In this regard,
Mart n-Rodrguezs ideas also support the consideration of the child
figure as an intermediate position of participant-observer, follow-
ing Renato Rosaldos redefinition of the new ethnographer in
Culture and Truth. In Mango Street, Esperanza embarks on a process
of dis-identification with her own culture, Chicano discourses, and
lived realities during her ongoing process of identity formation.
According to Rosaldo, the new ethnographer must be a social critic
who locates her/himself as both participant and observer, simulta-
neously becoming one of the people and remaining an academic
(180). Esperanza partially accounts for this intermediate position,
this fictional otherness within, serving as an appropriate figuration
of the category Chicana in the 1980s. However, her child figure is
not presented as a theoretical subject in the way that Celaya is in
Caramelo, published 18 years later, after an intense period of theori-
zation on the part of Chicana feminists. In this sense, while Esperanza
signified hope for the development of Chicana feminist thought in
the 1980s, Celaya in Caramelo accounts for (1) a consolidated site of
resistance and struggle, and (2) a turning point in Chicano culture
with the decline of the preponderance of a traditional male perspec-
tive. In other words, Celaya becomes Cisneross particular figuration

of the category Chicana in the twenty-first century. The merging

of the child and the authorial I is crucial to this evolution from
Esperanza to Celaya as prototypes of the female border thinker, or
anthropoetas (Saldvar, Trans-Americanity).4
Cisneros follows up on Moragas support of using childhood as
a strategy to preserve the Roots of women of colors radicalism
in This Bridge (Moraga and Anzalda 4). Furthermore, Cisneross

figuration of Lala/Celaya as girl/writer is closely related to the con-
ceptualization of the child in poststructuralist theories. As in Michel
Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, or Jean Franois Lyotard, the child figure
disrupts the normative subject (Castaeda 146). The child stands for
becoming rather than the bliss of being(148). Claudia Casta eda
concludes that, in contemporary discourses, the figuration of the
child tends to be considered as the presubjective other, as opposed
to the privileged adult perspective that actually models its very figu-
ration. She argues for a redefinition of the child more as a subject, a
particular kind of subject (168). In this sense, Cisneross figuration of
the Chicana as a subject-in-process offers one possible redefinition by
amalgamating the categories of child and adult.
The initial Disclaimer in Caramelo offers useful hints to com-
plete the merging of the figurations of child and writer:
DISCLAIMER, OR I DONT WANT HER, YOU CAN HAVE

HER, SHES TOO HOCICONA FOR ME
The truth, these stories are nothing but story, bits of string, odds
and ends found here and there, embroidered together to make some-
thing new. I have invented what I do not know and exaggerated what
I do to continue the family tradition of telling healthy lies. If, in the
course of my inventing, I have inadvertently stumbled on the truth,
perdnenme.
To write is to ask questions. It does not matter if the answers are
true or puro cuento. After all and everything only the story is remem-
bered, and the truth fades away like the pale blue ink on a cheap
embroidery pattern: Eres Mi Vida, Sueo Contigo Mi Amor, Suspiro Por
Ti, Slo T. (n.p.)
Despite the merging of the two figures in the immediately following

section, the authorial I starts by dis-identifying with the girl narrat-
ing I. Particularly, she dis-identifies with Lala/Celayas behavior as
hocicona. Hocicona is a colloquial term that derives from two popular
expressions: estar con hocico, meaning gesto que denota enojo o
desagrado; and meter el hocico en todo: meterse en todas partes con
excesiva curiosidad, querindolo averiguar todo (Diccionario de la

lengua espaola). Francisco Santamaras Diccionario de Mejicanismos

defines hociquear / hocicar as Maltratar de palabra spera y gros-
eramente, sobre todo abusando de superioridad jerrquica (596),
adding class as one of the aspects included in the use of the term in
Mxico. Finally, the hocico may also refer to the physical appearance
of the mestiza in a demeaning and racist way.
Cisneros is reinventing the child figure found in previous fiction,

emphasizing race and class variants, as well as a subversive qual-
ity derived from an oppressive situation. Celaya may, by all means,
account for a metaphor of the Chicano people. Her position as a child
ceases to represent a simple passage from innocence to experience,
from presubjective other to conscious self. Rather, she becomes a
disruptive subject-in-process characterized by a refusal to conform
and an impervious curiosity. She is a narrating I whose voice is,
from the beginning, controversial. The Disclaimer tells us to accept
possible contradictions between the authorial I and the girl nar-
rating I just like other possible contradictions between different
voices in the novel. In the wake of intersubjective theory, the relation-
ship between these two entities evokes the constant tension between
recognizing the other and asserting the self (Benjamin 38). In this
sense, the subsequent merging of the two Is in control of the nar-
rative account for a theoretical subject that is representative of iden-
tity-in-difference, as theorized by Norma Alarcn and others. This
Chicana subject-in-process gradually embodies itself as a dangerous
beast that is perceived as contentious throughout the narrative.
So far I have mainly focused on the extradiegetic sections in the
novel to explain the emergence of a theoretical subject-in-process
as the controlling agent of the narrative. From these sections at the
beginning and at the end of the novel, one can infer Cisneross views
on what disposition or temperament the category Chicana should
possess. In the next sections of this chapter, I am interested in how
this theoretical subject works. I argue that Cisneros uses the abstract
entity of the Chicana girl/writer as a theoretical subject in order
to develop a particular poetics. Cisneros does so by means of acts
of dis-identification operated through and by the figuration of the
Chicana girl/writer. As far as this is concerned, two main political
dis-identifications occur in Caramelo. First, the theoretical subject
dis-identifies with her previous writings, revisiting her own poetics
of space and elaborating on her own rasquache style. The study of
this self-reflective act enables Cisneros to grasp her particular under-
standing of bicultural trasnationalism. The second dis-identification
in Caramelo offers a revisionist reading of the Mexican and Chican@

literary traditions. It is accounted for by the analysis of the complexities

involved in the metaphor of the rebozo, and how it connects with the
ideas of continuous revision, repositioning, and interconnectivity.
The Chicana Rasquache Style

The process of accumulation found in Cisneross descriptions, neither

ordered nor completely chaotic, characterizes the particular rasquache
aesthetics of both her Chicano fictional worlds and her writing style.5
As an underdog perspective and a bicultural sensibility, rasqua-
chismo is a term that has been used to describe Chicana and Chicano
artistic productions, especially in the visual arts, decoration, and per-
formance installations (Ybarra-Fraustro 5). Alleatory reassemblages of
multifarious elements characterize the structural content and disposi-
tion of these artistic productions just as in Cisneross descriptions.
According to Amalia Mesa-Bains, rasquachismo is a worldview
that becomes for Chicano artists and intellectuals a vehicle for both
culture and identity (301). There is a Chicana feminist kind of
rasquachismo defined as domesticana, whose main features may
be seen in female artistic representations like capillas or domestic
dcor like home altars (300). Sandra Cisneross fictional worlds fol-
low this rasquache aesthetics in a particular way: a contradictory
commingling of artifacts coming from both Mexican, US, border
and Latino popular cultures comes to represent the menagerie of
elements involved in the process of identity formation. In addition,
rasquachismo is found not only at the semiotic and material level
in the novel, but also at the structural and metaphorical levels. In
Sandovals theories of oppositional consciousness, Cisneross rasqua-
chismo operates not only at the semiotic level, but also in relation
to the other four skills that work simultaneously as a methodology
of the oppressed deconstruction, meta-ideologizing, democratics,
and differential consciousness (Sandoval 81114).
Transnational Poetics of Space

In Caramelo, the theoretical subject Celaya/authorial I exerts a
self-reflective dis-identification with Cisneross previous poetics of
space. As a metaphorical conceptualization provoking attraction and
rejection, representing the tension between the inner and outer tech-
nologies of self and culture across space and time, Cisneross house
is expanded in Caramelo by the multiplication of domestic spaces and
the incorporation of the motif of traveling.

The proliferation of domestic spaces expands Cisneross initial dis-

identification with her revisionist reading of Gaston Bachelards The
Poetics of Space in Mango Street.6 The House on Destiny Street
becomes the central house in Caramelo. The Reyes move from the ini-
tial rented house in a barrio of Chicago to the house on El Dorado
in San Antonio, the first property that they own, and finally to a
new, better one in Chicago. However, the novel focuses on several

houses where not only Lala but also other women in her family, and
especially her grandmother Soledad, look for a room of their own at
different times. In chapter 13, Nios y borrachos, the drunk com-
padre, Coochi, teases Lala by asking her if she wants to move into his
house. Even though he offers her dolls, toys, a monkey, a bicycle, a
guitar, or chocolate, Lala rejects his fake invitation:
I already told you. No and no and no.

But how about if I give you your very own room. Ill buy you a
bed fit for a princess. With a canopy with lace curtains white-white like
the veils for Holy Communion. Now, will you come with me?
Well . . . O-kay!
The room roars into a laughter that terrifies me.
Women! Thats how they are. You just need to find their price,
Coochio says, strumming his guitar. (52)
Lala wants to move in only when she is offered a room to herself.

On the one hand, the girls first desire for a room of her own recre-
ates her grandmothers, when Soledad was a teenage housemaid dur-
ing the Mexican Revolution: Even with all those empty bedrooms,
Soledad found herself without a real room of her own. She was given
a cot in the pantry off the kitchen (114).7 On the other, her feelings
connect with contemporary Chicanas desire to have their own space
at home and in society, a desire that has been long denied to Mexican
and Mexican American women and one that Lala finally achieves. In
this sense, the novel suggests that present-day Chicanas have reached
positions of power that may be liberatory not only for them, but also
for older generations of women who may be still alive and benefit
from those achievements. As my analysis shows, this is one of many
interspersed reflections on the situation of Chicanas in Caramelo that
builds up a solid discourse within the purview of Chicana feminist
thought.
Beyond a simple account of the multiplication of domestic spaces,
it is the houses interconnection that is relevant, and that shows the
different stages in the process of acculturation of the Reyes family. In
the context of a rasquache poetics operated by the theoretical subject

in the novel, this is especially present in the assemblage and reassem-

blage of furniture and decoration. As in Gaspar de Albas Sor Juanas
Second Dream, furniture and decoration function in the novel as dis-
cursive sites of intervention that are exploited by Cisneros to convey
an oppositional discourse by means of her fiction. This accounts for
Cisneross own literary style within the context of Chicana feminist
strategies of resistance and affirmation.8

The redistribution and accumulation of furniture and decora-
tion are seen in the difference between the house that the Reyes first
rented in Chicago and the house of the uncle and the aunt, by com-
paring the idiosyncrasies of each style of decoration within the same
family tree. Inocencios job as an upholsterer makes the Reyess house
a heterogeneous warehouse:
Our own home is made up of furniture on loan, mismatched Duncan

Phyfes and Queen Annes, Victorian horsehair settees, leather wing
chairs with shoulders like Al Capone. Anything left over, abandoned,
or sitting in storage at the shop winds up at our house until reuphol-
stered and reclaimed . . .
All the rooms in our house fill up with too many things. Things
Father buys at Maxwell Street, things mother buys at the secondhand
stores when Father isnt looking, things bought on the other side to
bring here, so that it always feels as if our house is a storage room. (14)
Miscellaneous elements of diverse origin arrive to the house, left-

overs that nobody wants, things that they buy secondhand. But only
those that are permanently incorporated in the house decoration
become part of the Reyes identity, as for example the Naugahyde
La-Z-Boy: Sometimes if were lucky, a customer will forget a piece
of furniture, and then we get to keep it, which is how we got the
orange Naugahyde La-Z-Boy, Fathers favorite and my bed at night-
time (14).
The second way of expanding the poetics of space in Caramelo is
the incorporation of the motif of traveling. An analysis of this motif
in the context of the rasquache poetics reveals Cisneross approach to
transnationalism. As mentioned, the plot includes two round trips.
Each year, the three Reyes brothers drive separately down to Mexico
City during their vacations in order to visit their parents. Traveling
across Greater Mexico, and especially the border-crossing experi-
ence, are recurrent motifs in Chican@ literature in novels as significant
as Miguel Mndezs Peregrinos de Aztln (1974) and Ana Castillos
Mixquiahuala. But rather than focusing on the painful experience of

the illegal immigrant in Peregrinos or border crossing in the con-

text of gender oppression in Mixquiahuala the theoretical subject
in Caramelo is interested in memory, intercultural communication,
and the role of family. In this regard, Inocencios thoughts are espe-
cially illuminating in the novel. For Inocencio, Lalas father, his fam-
ily and mostly his children are his only home. They make sense of
every single house and city the family moves to:

Home. I want to go home already, Father says.
Home? Wheres that? North? South? Mexico? San Antonio?
Chicago? Where, Father?
All I want is my kids, Father SaysThats the only country I
need. (380)
The notion of nation is reduced to the notion of family as the core

of the home, no matter where they live. This emphasis on the cohe-
siveness of the family as the unifying force for the Chicana subject
remains at the core of Caramelo, una de las novelas ms marcadamente
transnacionales de la literatura chicana reciente (Martn-Rodrguez,
Review 99). The motif of traveling shows the child/writer as a
nomadic and desiring subject moving across nation-state boundaries.
The second generation Chicana girl/writer moves freely across the
United States and Mexico, evoking a process of becoming that, never-
theless, keeps Mexico and Mexican culture as centers of the narrative.
In this sense, Caramelo reaffirms biculturalism and family values in
the construction of Chicana/o transnational subjectivities.
The Caramelo Rebozo as Overarching Feminist Metaphor

Caramelo fuses geographical traveling with memory and historical
movements in space and time. A good example is the case of the wal-
nut-wood armoire that keeps the grandparents secrets in the House
on Destiny Street. In their visit to the house, the efforts of Lala and
her brothers to discover what is hidden in the armoire show their fas-
cination for their cultural roots through the most elemental feeling
of infant curiosity. A climactic scene takes place when she finally gets
her grandfather to show her what is inside, and thus discovering her
grandmothers caramelo-colored rebozo:
And whats this? I say, tugging an embroidered pillowcase.

This? The Grandfather says, pulling out of the pillowcase a cloth
of caramel, licorice, and vanilla stripes. This was your grandmothers
rebozo when she was a girl. Thats the only recuerdo she has from those

times, from when she was little. Its a caramelo rebozo. Thats what they
call them.
Why?
Well, I dont know. I suppose because it looks like candy, dont
you think?
I nod. And in that instant I cant think of anything I want more
than this cloth the golden color of burnt-milk candy.
Can I have it, Grandfather?

No, mi cielo. Im afraid its not mine to give, but you can touch
it. Its very soft, like corn silk. (Caramelo 578)
The armoire carries the Mexican legacy that Lala needs to take
possession of. The girl decides to take the rebozo both to continue a
female and national tradition, and to transform it into an embodied
metaphor of multiple implications.9
The title of the novel refers to the color of the rebozo that Lalas
grandmother keeps in her closet in Mexico City. Soledads caramelo
rebozo represents the last vestige of a tradition of weavers and nee-
dlewomen. Her mother dies without being able either to finish it
or to teach Soledad the art of its weaving and embroidering as part
of a matrilineal heritage. Lala looks forward to the day she inherits
her grandmothers rebozo, which fascinates her from the very first
time she has access to the mysteries hidden in the walnut-wood
armoire.
In Caramelo, the rebozo becomes an embodied and feminist met-
aphor.10 Throughout the novel, the girls learning process weaves the
rebozo that constitutes her identity as a Chicana. In this process, her
desire to inherit the rebozo addresses her wish to embrace a Chicana
heritage and also symbolizes her taking over in a feminine tradition.
Nevertheless, the narrative offers clear ruptures: being unfinished,
the great-grandmothers rebozo signals a symbolic fissure in the
matrilineal heritage at the time it is given by the great-grandmother
to grandmother Soledad. In this sense, the metaphor refers to the
critical time marked by the Mexican Revolution. Similarly, when the
rebozo passes from the grandmother to Lala, another rupture takes
place representing their migration to the United States. These rup-
tures account for traumatic, socio-symbolic moments that exemplify
the lack of linearity and the fissures affecting the story Chicana.
In a monographic number of the journal Artes de Mxico (1971),
the rebozo is considered [la] prenda mestiza por excelencia, nacida
de la necesidad y de la fusin de varias culturas (Castell Iturbide
and Martnez del Ro 6). The textile art of indigenous Mexicans
was very well developed when the Spanish conquistadores arrived,

with the loom de otate (kind of bamboo) or de cintura (portable

loom used by the Mayans to weave small portions of clothing). The
Spaniards introduced the distaff and a loom operated with pedals, as
well as new materials such as wool and silk coming from Asia. Both
looms became widely used, and new pieces of clothing, such as the
rebozo, developed. Thus, the rebozo became in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries a piece of clothing commonly used by mestizas

and was characterized by its multifunctionality. A regulation of the
Real Academia de la Nueva Espaa in 1582 banning the use of the
indigenous ways of dressing for mestizas, mulattas, and black women
played an important part in the development of the use of the rebozo,
whose history also accounts for the establishment of the caste sys-
tem in colonial Mexico. The rebozo was initially linked to the lower
classes, and it soon developed differently in every regional loom.11
Likewise, women of different backgrounds started to use it, no matter
what social class they affiliated with.12
Without having a voice of their own, mestizas and also Mexican
Americans during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have devel-
oped strategies to express and perpetuate their own female universe.13
Besides oral transmission, mestizas have also found artistic means to
inscribe their particularly creative understanding of the world. In this
context, Cisneross Caramelo offers a revisionist reading of Mexican
and Chican@ literary traditions.
The singular intricacies of the weave and design make every rebozo
a unique work of art. In this sense, the rebozo is a metaphor for a way
of writing. Besides its obvious representation of the way the novel is
structured, as shown so far in my study, its metaphoric function is also
visible in Cisneross interest in creating a more or less unitary fictional
world in her entire production, as shown by some subtle connections
with previous poems and short stories. In Caramelo, Cisneros elabo-
rates on narrative strategies found in her previous production.14 In
this regard, Julin Olivares states: if some of the stories [in The House
on Mango Street] are read like poems, it is because some had been
poems redone as stories or constructed from the debris of unfinished
poems. The focus, then, on compression and lyricism contributes
to the brevity of the narratives (161). Cisneros herself explains in a
radio interview how she writes as a person making a quilt, picking
found objects up until she finds a pattern. Then, I start arranging
them and stitching them together (Sandra Cisneros). In effect,
her rebozo way of writing characterizes her development of a liter-
ary style that tries to conform to a particular Chicana vision of inter-
connectedness in the context of identity formation.

The Rebozo and a Chicana Worldview

In Chicana literature, the appearance of the rebozo is clearly linked
to a discourse that challenges traditional gender constructs. Mara
Cristina Menas (18931965) short story Doa Ritas Rival (1914)
offers an early example. Mara Cristina Mena, a multilingual cri-
olla who migrated to New York when she was 14, used the motif of
the rebozo in this short story to illustrate the rigid class hierarchy in

Porfirio Dazs Mexico (18761910). According to her, there were
women de sombrero, de tpalo, and de rebozo: Persons of
rebozo one never speak of families so far down the social scale
are the women of petty tradespeople, servants, artisans (Mena 70).
Mena defined social classes according to womens dress, at the risk of
stereotyping. As already noted in the literature of the times, rebozos
were used by women of different class backgrounds. Mena ends up
deconstructing the early twentieth-century Mexican class hierarchy,
reminiscent of the caste system.
As early as 1914, Mena is mainly interested in the complex inter-
relations of nation and class variants, prefiguring one of the main
concerns for Chicana feminists since the 1970s. Doa Ritas Rival
presents a widow, Doa Rita, trying to control her emasculated
sons life, up to the point of involuntary murder. Doa Rita has two
rivals: one is Jess Maras beloved, of a lower class background and
the other is her sons patriotism, as he actively advocates for Porfirio
Dazs government. Her eventual death rejects the class hierarchies
that existed before the Mexican Revolution.
The theoretical subject in Caramelo shows how Chicanas may
transpose the tradition of weaving rebozos into their writings. In
contrast with Mara Cristina Mena, Sandra Cisneros uses the rebozo
metaphorically to represent the experience of Chicanas and Chicanos
from a feminine perspective. Rather than being the national sym-
bol that comes together with the idealized figure of the mestiza, it
becomes an embodied feminist metaphor of Chicana feminist writing
and understanding of life. Life experiences unfold as the weaving of a
rebozo, as Lala explains:
This is my life, with its dragon arabesques of voices and lives inter-
twined, rushing like a Ganges, irrevocable and wild, carrying away
everything in reach, whole villages, pigs, shoes, coffeepots, and that
little baskets inside the coffeepot that mother always does. (425)
Structurally, Caramelo resembles a rebozo to better account for an

identity-formation process in which writing itself takes a part. This idea

is shared by Chicana writers who, as I discussed in Juncture ,

not only argue for the importance of costume and appearance as socio-
cultural markers, but also use the language of dressing metaphori-
cally to define their differential identities-in-process. In the same vein,
Caramelo offers the kaleidoscope of discourses or thematic threads
from which new subjectivities-in-process arise. That is why Cisneros
declares that Caramelo ends up being a novel about interconnected-

ness (Sandra Cisneros, 2003).
In contemporary feminist literature, and before the publication
of Caramelo, Carmen Tafolla presents in a similar way the metaphor
of the rebozo in her poem Mujeres del rebozo rojo, first published
in Floricanto S!: A Collection of Latina Poetry in 1998. A collec-
tive female poetic persona addresses the issue of Chicana identity.
The women of the red rebozo recognize themselves in an act of
consciousness-raising symbolized by the extension of their rebozos.
Opening them up accounts for revealing their own lives either to
themselves or to the world, and certainly to the reader:
. . . . to unfold our lives as if they were a rebozo

revealing its inner colors,
the richness of its texture,
the strength of its weave,
the history of its making. (Tafolla 14)
In Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros expands Tafollas poetic vision of

Chicana interconnectedness by writing a novel that tries to be more
faithful, structurally and stylistically, to a Chicana feminist under-
standing of identity politics. Both writers incorporate clothes as an
integral part of their figurations of the Chicana.
The initial lines of an essay published in Mexico in 1917 promot-
ing Mexican folklore may serve as a partial summary of the uses of the
rebozo noted in Cisneross novel:
Qu es esta cosa frgil y delicada, si fina; til y prestigiosa si va a

manos plebeyas? . . . qu es esta prenda femenil que presta donaire, que
completa hechizos, que confiere sortilegios, y se torna ya en arma de
combate, ya en tibio refugio, ora en atavo evocador, o bien en indis-
pensable parte de una vida? (Nez y Domnguez 11)
Cisneross rebozo writing enables, first, the possibility of taking

on a self-conscious tactical positioning toward particular objectives.
Second, it addresses its spiritual, transcendental dimension. Moreover,
the rebozo may become a weapon both defensive and offensive, that

is, a symbol viable for oppositional identity. Finally, as the folklorist

states, the rebozo is an atavo evocador, or evocative attire that
becomes an embodied and feminist metaphor that activates memory
and structures a particular Chicana worldview.
An analysis of the metaphor of the rebozo reveals the way in which
the feminist theoretical subject works in the novel. Once the cara-
melo rebozo is included in Cisneross particular feminist figuration

of the Chicana, a further step is taken to understand the universe as
a rebozo. Section 80, Zcalo, locates us at the core of the meaning
of the caramelo rebozo as far as its transcendental, transformative
feminist quality that seeks universal interconnectedness:
I look up, and la Virgen looks down at me, and, honest to god, this
sounds like a lie, but its true. The universe a cloth, and all humanity
interwoven. Each and every person connected to me, and me con-
nected to them, like the strands of a rebozo. Pull one string and the
whole thing comes undone. Each person who comes into my life
affecting the pattern, and me affecting theirs. (389)
In Cisneross writings, interconnectedness highlights intercul-

tural communication as a main concern. In Caramelo, the universe
includes all humanity interwoven, that is, peoples bodies and lived
realities. Here, Cisneros is emphasizing a constant reinvention of the
subject as an entity fully immersed in relations of power, knowl-
edge and desire whose becoming is about empathic proximity and
intensive interconnectedness (Braidotti 7). Cisneros is interested in
finding a poetics that better accounts for the complexity involved
in an identity-in-difference formation process. On the other hand,
interconnectivity has to do with the weaving of discourses involved
in composing the story Chicana, a differential method of complex
political implications, if we read Cisneros from Sandovals theoretical
lenses. Interconnectedness and interconnectivity are, therefore, both
felicitous and contentious as sites of struggle that may be full of lib-
eratory potential regarding intercultural exchange.
Conclusion
In Piln, the epilogue added to Caramelo, Cisneros herself justifies
her insistence on the child/narrator. In a strategy similar to Moragas
figuration of the rural activist as a female character who is only a head
in Heroes and Saints, Cisneros chooses the pre-teenage girl as an ini-
tially disembodied abstract entity that serves as the main narrator:

I dont know how it is with boys. Ive never been a boy. But girls some-
where between the ages of, say, eight and puberty, girls forget they
have bodies. Its the time she has trouble keeping herself clean, socks
always dropping, knees poked and bloody, hair crooked as a broom.
She doesnt look in mirrors. She isnt aware of being watched. Not
aware of her body causing men to look at her yet. There isnt the sense
of the female bodys volatility, its rude weight, the nuisance of drag-
ging it about. There isnt the world to bully you with, bludgeon you,

condemn you to a life sentence of fear. Its the time when you look at
a young girl and notice she is at her ugliest, but at the same time, at
her happiest. She is a being as close to a spirit as a spirit. (Caramelo
4334)
Considering the girl as a spirit and as absent from the portrait at

the beginning of the novel are strategic points of departure to show
a gradual embodiment of the girl/writer as a subject-in-process in
control of the narrative. This Chicana girl/writer is a figuration of
the dangerous beast in several ways. First, she is defined as hocicona,
rejecting to conform, curious, and ambitious. Second, this figura-
tion operates by constructing a feminist rasquache poetics that is rep-
resented in the novel by the metaphor of the rebozo. In sum, it is
a theoretical subject that embroiders bits of string, odds and ends
found here and there to make something new. Cisneros replaces
here the image of Coyolxauhqui as a metaphor for putting the story
together, theorized by Anzalda, with the metaphor of weaving a
rebozo. This emphasis underscores a change from using the pantheon
of indigenous diosas to situating the construction of the story in the
intermediate level between the body and the world, the nepantla-like
space of dressing and ornamentation. In this sense, Cisneros follows
up on an issue that I already explored regarding Gaspar de Albas
poetics. For Chicanas, constructing their story is an ongoing creative
process that includes minding their appearance, minding their
writing style, and, more generally, the recognition of being perceived
as dangerous beasts in the process of human interaction with each
other and with others.


Juncture
Transdisciplinarity

M y visit to the Benson Latin American Library at the University
of Texas at Austin to consult The Gloria Anzalda Papers coincided
with the publication of a new edition of Borderlands that included
texts by prominent scholars and writers in the field of Chicana stud-
ies. When I arrived in Austin, I decided to purchase a copy in one of
the main bookstores in town. Their computer system showed that
they had copies of the new edition at the store, but could not say
in what section it was located. First, I looked for the book in the
Womens studies and the Ethnic studies sections. In Ethnic studies,
I looked under Chicano and Latino studies. By the Womens studies
shelf, I looked under Lesbian studies and Queer studies. The book
was nowhere to be found.
Finally, I asked at the front desk. The staff member walked me to
the literary criticism shelves and handed me the brownish new edi-
tion. The shelving categories on the books back cover were the same
as in previous editions, Chicana studies/Womens studies. I did
not expect the book to be just a literary theory book, especially in
Austin, right by Anzaldas Papers.
This anecdote made me think about Anzaldas and Chicanas
passion for methodology. If radical Chicanas do not really identify
completely with any available identity descriptor US Third World
feminists, women of color, lesbians, queer, and so on, and they
constantly look for new labelsXicana, jota, patlacheBorderlands,
as most of their books, does not conform to conventional biblio-
graphical indexing or shelving categories either. In this context, it
was intriguing to see how Chicana studies/Womens studies had
become the mark of the beast for Anzaldas book at that book-
store in Austin. It is a book that you could find in many sections and

aisles, but that, when you actually have to look for it not as com-
mon anymore, since we buy everything online! you cant find it
anywhere, even if the bookstore computer says it is available. In this
case, the mark of the beast exposes how Borderlands, and dangerous
beasts poetics in general have the potential and aspiration to be ubiq-
uitous that is, to intervene on many political fronts but in most
cases end up being invisible, in a process that perpetuates the margin-

ality of radical Chicana thought.
Dangerous beasts poetics is not (only) multidisciplinary nor (only)
interdisciplinary, but rather transdisciplinary. In this sense, radical
Chicanas contribution to what critics call post-Movement or post-
national turn in Chican@ studies is also methodological, and does
not only refer to adding a gender and sexuality paradigm. A brief sur-
vey of the evolution of Chican@ studies is pertinent here.
The convergence of different approaches and disciplines has been
present in Chican@ studies since the 1970s. During the 1980s,
Chican@ scholars started to recognize that working on their own terms
meant building up methodologies out of the intersection of different
disciplines, and not merely with multidisciplinary work. However, it
is not until the late 1980s that interdisciplinarity is fully incorporated
by Chican@ critics as intrinsic to their approaches, becoming the most
respected modus operandi.
Julie Thompson Klein makes the distinction between multidis-
ciplinary as additive and interdisciplinarity as integrative (56).
According to her, critics base their interdisciplinary work on interaction
rather than on a simple accumulation of materials. Interdisciplinary
knowledge implies taking a further step toward the transformation of
different analytical tools to come up with new critical results beyond
traditional methodologies. According to Carlos Ortega in the early
days of Chicano studies to create a body of critical and empirical
knowledge, there would be multidisciplinary approaches, and . . . a
group of working practitioners in working relation with one another
(Ortega ix). Since the very beginning of the discipline, multidisci-
plinary work started to develop in the social sciences offering a revi-
sionist approach to traditional historical representation (Ortega x)
For Klein, what is important about interdisciplinary work is the
awareness of what the different levels of integration entail (73).
As noted above, the continuous presence of metacritical debates in
Chican@ studies shows proof of the critics desire to find adequate
analytical tools. However, the experimental 1980s were marked by
confusion about the very meaning of the terms multidisciplinary and
interdisciplinary.

TRANSDISCIPLINARIT Y 163
In 1984, for example, an anthology edited by Eugene E. Garca,

Francisco A. Lomel, and Isidro D. Ortiz was entitled Chicano
Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach. However, in the introduction
the editors claimed that the studies were interdisciplinary. According
to them, Chicano studies departments and programs were created to
pursue the systematic study of the Chicano experience in all its facets
within an interdisciplinary framework (Garca, Lomel and Ortiz 1).

Their words differed from the structure of the book, which followed
the multidisciplinary approach mentioned in the title. Contributions
were divided into sections on History, Social Structure and Politics,
Literature and Folklore, and Educational Perspectives. In the
first article, The Development of Chicano Studies, 19681981,
Carlos Muoz described interdisciplinarity as one of the goals of
Chicano research in a way that conforms to the integrative quality
indicated by Klein: research projects must be interdisciplinary in
nature . . . traditional discipline(s) . . . serve . . . to fragment our research
in a highly artificial manner, and to obscure the interconnectedness
among variables that operate to maintain the oppression of our peo-
ple (Muoz 15). However, the editors were still hesitant about the
difference between the prefixes multi- and inter-.
It is generally acknowledged that the gender and sexuality para-
digm in This Bridge promoted diversification and interdisciplinarity
in Chican@ studies and Womens studies. However, radical Chicanas
approach to methodology goes beyond the integration of disciplines
in many ways, by adding their own lived realities, being open to non-
traditional epistemologies, having tolerance for contradictions and
ambiguity, valuing inclusiveness, and so on.
In her earliest interview in 1982, Anzalda explains how she was
trying to create a a writing of convergence: [the coming together of]
The sexual, the mental, the emotional, the psychic, the supernatu-
ral . . . [understood as] the unconscious (Anzalda, Interviews 367).
Her radical statement stigmatized her writings and those of other
Chicanas as antiacademic. But in fact it was part of a revolutionary
paradigmatic shift that has led to expanding of theoretical categories
and to Chicanas participation in dialogues beyond their disciplines
at both local and national levels.
The consolidation of radical Chicana thought coincides with
the emergence of transdisciplinary studies since the 1970s, and
Anzaldas writing of convergence runs parallel to a radical meth-
odological movement in the sciences and the arts that defies aca-
demic, library science, and bookstore shelving! conventions. Radical
Chicanas writing of convergence conforms to the basic premises

of transdisciplinary thought as described in Basarab Nicolescus

Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (2002). Transdisciplinary knowl-
edge does not emphasize knowing but understanding. Rather than
an orientation towards power and possession, transdisciplinarity
promotes astonishment and sharing, and claims for a new type
of intelligence a balance between intellect, feeling, and the body
(Nicolescu 153).

For obvious reasons, transdisciplinary knowledge is perceived as
dangerous, since it defies the epistemological organization of aca-
demia in many ways. Radical Chicanas transdisciplinary visions
for transformation create fundamental paradigmatic shifts, but also
perpetuate their marginality and their being perceived as danger-
ous beasts as long as their poetics is considered as anomalies and not
accepted by traditional taxonomies.
Today, as I revise this juncture essay, I just contributed online to a
fundraising to support the publication and distribution of the twenty-
fifth anniversary edition of Borderlands. And, ironically, I am teach-
ing Borderlands as a literary theory text in my Introduction to the
Graduate Study of Literature and Culture course, a core requirement
in our graduate program. The anthology that I am using includes the
seventh chapter of the prose section of Anzaldas book among other
canonical texts of all ages. Thinking about Sor Juana as a prototype
of the Chicana writer, I ask myself, Is Anzalda a curiosity in this
court? Or could she be, like Sor Juana, the foremother of a future
liberation movement?

Chapter 6
The Jurez Murders, Chicana Poetics,

and Human Rights Discourse
Coyolxauhqui Goes Global

My research on the fictionalization of the murder of women in
Ciudad Ju rez started in 2002, coinciding with the years when social
activists networked to place these violations of human rights cen-
ter stage worldwide. From 2002 to 2004, demonstrations in Jurez
and Mexico City and conferences at UCLA and UTEP joined the
efforts of powerful organizations, scholars, artists, and well-known
intellectuals in publicizing the drama of hundreds of families that
suffered the loss or disappearance of their daughters, most of them
very young, poor, and mixed-race migrant workers from all around
Mexico who came to Jurez to work at the assemblage plants or
maquiladoras. V-day in 2004 was probably the moment of maximum
visibility. Eve Enslers play The Vagina Monologues was performed
with a new monologue on the murders. The author herself visited the
border several times.
Since the very beginning in 1993, when the first mutilated bod-
ies were found, families of the disappeared and their allies organized
against the indifference and the connivance of government officials
and corrupt police. The cross, and the combination of black and the
so-called Mexican pink, or rosa mexicano, became characteristic sym-
bols and emblems in their mobilization. They placed these crosses
where the bodies were found and around the most crowded streets
and border crossings in Jurez.
In Coyolxauhquis Tree of Life, Alma L pez used this iconogra-
phy and incorporated body parts of Coyolxauhqui on the cross (see
figure 6.1). Her crucified Coyolxauhqui was the poster for The


Figure 6.1 Coyolxauhquis Tree of Life, by Alma L pez 2003 (conference poster).
In Poster for The Maquiladora Murders Or, Who Is killing the Women of Ju rez?
International Conference. UCLA, October 31November 2, 2003.
Maquiladora Murders Or, Who Is killing the Women of Jurez?

International Conference at UCLA in 2003, where scholars, activists,
artists, and families of the victims met under the auspices of Amnesty
International.1
Jane Caputi, one of the scholars who attended, used L pezs image
of Coyolxauhqui to theorize gynocide in Ciudad Jurez:
I consider the murders as a form of ritual blood sacrifice, a modern

enactment of the core patriarchal myth of Goddess murder. I ponder
the ways that these gynocidal acts are involved in an overall pattern of

MURD ERS, CHICANA POET IC S, HUMAN RIGHT S 167
soul murder as well as the ways that feminist activism (material and
spiritual) works to undo this pattern and remember Coyolxauhqui and
all she represents. (Caputi 280)
For Caputi, the women of Jurez are modern-day Coyolxauhquis. The

goddess is reinvented again, but this time also by outsidersCaputi
and other feminist scholars and activists worldwideand in relation

to the dismembered women of Jurez. The fact that Coyolxauhqui
reaches feminist discourses on femicide is indicative of how radical
Chicana poetics is part of the dialogues on human rights and global
justice at the USMexico border.
When I started my research, what interested me the most about sym-
bols and the coming into play of a certain kind of aesthetic discourse
was how, since the very beginning also, a narrative, at times grueling, at
times sensationalistic, had developed about these murders. According to
Sergio Gonzlez Rodrguez, the Jurez murders have generated at least
four major lines of contradicting discourse and narrative: the offi-
cial version, the journalistic narrative, reports from academics and
international organizations, and what he calls the cultural narrative:
This narrative seeks to reinvent reality or defend historical truth based

on reportage, first-person stories, fictions, or beliefs held by the com-
munity; word of mouth information and emerging expressions that
offer a wealth of content. (Gonz lez Rodr guez 823)2
This cultural narrative has to do with the anxieties of postmoder-

nity and postnationalism. It is a detective narrative with a founda-
tional moment the first body found in May 1993 with links to the
infamies of the late capitalism it coincides with the implementation
of the North American Trade Agreement, NAFTA, in 1994 and a
narrative with no end, hinting at the proliferation and perpetuation
of torture against the oppressed, young, poor women, and those who
live in the borderlands.
Since 2006, due to the fights between narcotraffickers to con-
trol the USMexico divide, killings have intensified and are causing
new changes in the configuration of the border. Every year up until
2012, around 5,000 people have been violently killed in Mexico, and
well over 1,000 every year in Ciudad Jurez alone. These killings are
receiving full coverage by the media internationally.
In this context, the killing of hundreds of women since 1993,
officially around five hundred but probably in the thousands, may
become secondarydisappearing from the news, and forgotten by

agencies and officials. While in previous years journalistic pieces

included forensic accounts about the bodies, now these details are no
longer appealing. In the current climate of violence and fear at the
USMexico border, it is urgent that we focus not only on the central
acts, the killings related to drug dealing, but also on the periphery, on
those killings that, although closely related to narcotrafficking, are
definitely of a more complex and obscure nature.

In this chapter, I discuss these peripheral killings, and how the
processes of narrativization may give light and visibility, or may com-
plicate their obscurity even more. I will use the language and con-
cepts of dangerous beasts poetics to better approach the killings, and
to show how the body/text metaphor of Coyolxauhqui, as well as
the notions of interconnectedness and a writing of convergence
can elucidate some of the strategies embedded in the cultural narra-
tive about femicide in Ciudad Jurez. In the context of Jurez, Julia
Monrrez Fragoso explains that femicide
comprises a progression of violent acts that range from emotional, psy-

chological and verbal abuse through battery, torture, rape, prostitu-
tion, sexual assault, child abuse, female infanticide, genital mutilation,
and domestic violence as well as all policies that lead to the deaths of
women tolerated by the state. (Mon rrez Fragoso 157)
Femicide involves serial sexual murder, defined as a ritualistic

mythic act in the contemporary patriarchy where sex and violence
meld, where an intimate relationship between manliness and plea-
sure is established (Monrrez Fragoso 156). In Ciudad Jurez, femi-
cide has escalated into a complex, multidimensional operation that
Gonz lez Rodrguez defines as femicide machine and is character-
izes by its unending reproducibility:
The femicide machine applied its force upon institutions via direct
action, intimidation, ideological sympathy, inertia, and indifference.
This prolongs its own dominance, and guarantees its unending repro-
ducibility. Traced over time, its effects recreate its modus operandi: In
Ciudad Ju rez, violence against women multiplied for more than ten
years, while at the same time a veil of impunity was constructed. In
subsequent years, disdain for and oblivion of the victims became more
formalized through political institutions, the judicial system, and the
mass media. The price of this misfortune was paid within the border
territory more than anything else. (Gonz lez Rodr guez 11)
How can human rights activists approach this terrible unending

reproducibility? Through the mutually enabling power of art and

theory, dangerous beasts poetics, as I contend, offers a methodol-

ogy that is essential for scholars, activists, governmental agencies and
international human rights organizations when they approach grave
human rights violations such as femicide globally in different border-
lands around the world.

The Narratives
The terrible murder of hundreds of women in Ciudad Jurez suggests
that women are expendable, sexualized, less-than-human objects of
trade and desire. After a study conducted in 1998, the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights published a report on these murders
in 2002. The report concluded with several recommendations to
prevent violence against women in Ciudad Jurez and increase their
security. Point number 8 recommended to
Work with the media to: promote public awareness of the right to
be free from violence; inform the public about the costs and conse-
quences of such violence; disseminate information about legal and
social support services for those at risk; and inform victims, victim-
izers and potential victimizers of the punishment for such violence.
(Situation)
Journalistic research has been crucial not only to the investigations

but also to the creation of networks of collaboration across institu-
tions and organizations both nationally and internationally. Two early
examples by Mexican journalists are Vctor Ronquillos Las muertas de
Jurez: Crnica de los crmenes ms despiadados e impunes (1999), and
Sergio Gonzlez Rodrguezs Huesos en el desierto (2001). However, as
we see in books like Charles Bowdens Juarez: The Laboratory of Our
Future (1998), which included a reflection on violence in this Mexican
city, graphic pictures, and a preface by Noam Chomsky, media has also
been the main source for the exotization of border violence and the
murder of women by mythifying suspects, glorifying the actions of
corrupt Mexican police, and exaggerating the work of US experts who
were hired by Mexican authorities to investigate the killings.
Seorita Extraviada
Documentaries such as Chicana filmmaker Lourdes Portillos Seorita
extraviada (2001) or Steven Hises On the Edge: The Femicide in
Ciudad Juarez (2006) have publicized the killings globally, while

movies such as Bordertown (2006) combine serious denunciation

with clichs and stereotypes about women and about the borderlands
that come from popular culture and Hollywood.
Seorita extraviada was instrumental to publicize the murders
worldwide, but it was not exempt from controversy (Washington
Valdez 789, Segato 89, Gaspar de Alba, Making a Killing). In 2002,
when the documentary was receiving awards and being distributed

worldwide, Debbie Nathan criticized Portillos approach. According
to Nathan, Portillo exaggerated figures, misinformed audiences, and
created confusion. In a recent study, Elvia Arriola agrees partially with
Nathan, highlighting the absence of a critique against the maquila-
dora industry in the documentary.
Portillos approach to the effects of globalization is insufficient,
according to both Nathan and Arriola. I have to disagree with this
critique in several ways. First, Portillo did include the maquiladora
industry in her documentary, in scenes where she explains how
mechanical work makes women automatons and dehumanizes them.3
Second, it is easy to say that Portillo was not emphasizing a critique
of the maquiladora industry from todays perspective. In 2000, when
the documentary was shot and edited, globalization was not under-
stood in the way we understand it today, and the literature on Ciudad
Jurez on this issue was not as abundant as it is today. Evidence after
2002 show that Nathan was misinformed. The figures are there; and
yes, they are part of the broader violence against women, not only of
the mystery part. But what Nathan did not understand is how Portillo
used the detective plot and metafilmic strategies as more effective
ways of publicizing the killings. She ignored that Portillos a meta-
poetic maneuvers are part of Chicana feminisms. The inclusion of a
Chicana theoretical subject in the documentary, through the voice of
Portillo herself, accounts for this strategic intervention, and clarifies
Portillos particular dangerous beasts poetics.
Seorita extraviada shows, first, a focus on dismembered bodies as
symbolic of the erasure of poor brown migrant women from history.
Second, the documentarys emphasis on the complex and disturbing
use of costume and appearance both as part of mestizas strategies
of survival and of governmental strategies to victimize them follows
very closely Alicia Gaspar de Albas and Sandra Cisneross poetics.
Bodies are dismembered and undressed, and by showing how their
clothes are manipulated, for example, Portillo offers a more nuanced
reflection on how the mark of the beast on these women and their
being considered as less than human have to do with cultural dis-
courses about femininity and violence at the border. Third, and most

importantly, Portillo includes superstition and popular beliefs as valid

discourses to contextualize and understand the goals of justice and
reparation in a transdisciplinary way that follows Anzaldas writ-
ing of convergence: [the coming together of] The sexual, the men-
tal, the emotional, the psychic, the supernatural . . . [understood as]
the unconscious(Anzalda, Interviews 367).4 In this way, Seorita
extraviada establishes a solid connection between radical Chicana poet-

ics and human rights discourses that deal with global gender justice.
Literary Texts
The fictionalization of the Jurez murders first occurred in literary
texts. Two early examples are the short stories by Rosario Sanmiguel,
a native of El Paso, and Carlos Fuentess short story Malintzin de las
Maquilas, included in La frontera de cristal (1995). Fuentess collec-
tion, of course, reached much wider audiences than Sanmiguels. Even
though neither of them deal directly with the killings, Sanmiguel and
Fuentes are among the first to connect the situation of women work-
ing in the maquiladoras with the Mexican national imaginary. Fuentes
identifies maquiladora women workers with the figure of Malintzin
or Malinche, hinting at their being perceived as both victims and
traitors. However, he prioritizes the voices of these women workers
and their personal stories. Each one has a specific story that needs to
be read. Both aspects women as victims and traitors, and a focus
on the poor working conditions at the maquiladoras will reoccur in
later literary pieces on the issue.
In 2002, books published in different parts of the globe confirm
an increasing interest in fictionalizing this border issue. British writer
Simon Whitechapels Crossing to Kill: The True Story of the Serial-
Killer Playground, Mexican journalist Carmen Galn Bentezs Tierra
marchita, and French journalist Patrick Bards La frontire combine
serious investigations with the conventions of true crime and detective
fiction. Different transnational perspectives locate the USMexico
border not only as a contentious and violent liminal space, but also as
a privileged location for the production of meaning. The border is the
laboratory of our future, as Charles Bowden established in 1998, a
source for apocalyptic visions of the future and, most of all, a source
of profit in the publishing industry.
In the pages that follow, I focus on two recent novels about the
Jurez murders written at different geopolitical locations and with
different but not totally opposite purposes: the monumental 2666
by Chilean Roberto Bolao, published posthumously in 2004, and

Desert Blood (2005) by Gaspar de Alba. What interests me about

them is how violent events affecting poor women at the border, such
as femicide and serial sexual murder, are inextricably linked to pro-
cesses of narrativization that can be read through the lenses of radical
Chicana poetics.
Femicide and serial sexual murder are inseparable from processes
of narrativization. These processes are part of the construction of the

events as legal, mediatic, social, psychological, and even spiritual cases
in a transdisciplinary way. In this context, I am positing, first, that the
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, in recommendations
such as the one I quoted above, misses the importance of the processes
of narrativization in literature and the arts. Second, I argue that exo-
tization is inevitable and, paradoxically, necessary in these processes.
The recognition of exotization that is, conscious awareness of being
perceived as dangerous monsters can be utilized a part of the search
for social justice and the defense of human rights.
Reflecting upon the relationship between literary forms and
human rights discourse, I am interested in questions about position-
ality. How does an artist/writer approach a border issue? From what
perspective(s) or location(s)? And most importantly, how can we, crit-
ics, approach these literary works that deal with human rights issues
at the border?
In this sense, my analysis reflects upon the possibilities of trans-
border literary criticism, a concept developed by Debra A. Castillo
and Mara Socorro Tabuenca Crdoba. They include a comparative
study of the works of Mexican and Chicana women writers. I concur
with these critics in focusing on the analysis of female perspectives in
the literary rendition of border issues, especially those that dramati-
cally affect women such as the Jurez murders. However, I argue that
cultural and literary critics need to trace connections among multi-
ple transcultural and transdisciplinary perspectives on border issues,
beyond the writers affiliation, gender, nationality, or geopolitical
location. Transborder literary criticism has to consider the fictional-
ization of border issues, taking into account works written from dif-
ferent geopolitical locations, and beyond a binational view.
Desert Blood
In Desert Blood, Gaspar de Alba uses topics and conventions of
detective fiction to publicize the cases of femicide in Ciudad Jurez.
The main character, Ivon Villa, returns to her birthplace, El Paso, to
adopt a baby from a maquiladora worker in Ciudad Jurez. There she

becomes a detective who investigates the murders after the maqui-

ladora worker is killed and her sister is kidnapped. The character of
Ivon Villa is clearly autobiographical. Gaspar de Alba was born in El
Paso and is a Professor of Chican@ studies at UCLA. She wrote her
dissertation on Chicano Art. Ivon Villa is a Chicana lesbian graduate
student who is writing a dissertation on Chicano graffiti. She lives in
Los Angeles but is originally from El Paso. The novel may be read

as an allegory of Gaspar de Albas own return to El Paso to help her
original community. Returning to her birthplace and giving back to
her hometown community is also a chance to rearticulate Chicana
identity.
Following Gaspar de Albas cultural criticismdiscussed in
chapter 4 Ivon Villas rite of passage from cultural schizophre-
nia to border consciousness is displayed at the level of the detec-
tive investigation. Desert Blood elaborates on the main theories about
the murders, and focuses on the existence of a snuff film industry
controlled by narcotraffickers and junior family members of maqui-
ladora managers and owners. The character of Dr. Amen is modeled
after Abdel Latif Sharif Sharif, the Egyptian chemist who was accused
of being the master serial killer and was arrested by Mexican authori-
ties in 1995. Following the real charges against Sharif, Dr Amen
playing with the words amen and hymencontrols the sexuality
of the women working at the maquiladora, abuses them, and experi-
ments with drugs and insemination procedures. Gaspar de Alba keeps
the original names of Los Rebeldes and Los Choferes, two gangs of
drug addicts that were connected with Sharif by police investigators
in Ciudad Jurez.
Besides the theory of a criminal network controlled by Sharif,
other theories have pointed to narcotraficking, police corruption, the
implication of maquiladora owners and personnel, and their relation-
ship to the US border patrol. All these agents are present in Desert
Blood as part of a binational imaginary at the border. The snuff
film industry operates on both sides. Cases of torture, kidnappings,
and murders occur on both Mexican and US soil. However, Gaspar
de Albas motivation, which is initially personal, goes beyond the
binational. Human rights issues at the border need as much attention
as possible by the widest audiences.
In the wake of Portillos aesthetic activism, Gaspar de Albas goal
is to publicize the case internationally, especially among authorities
and organizations that deal with human rights issues worldwide.
To do so, she wrote a novel following the conventions of a popu-
lar genre and, as I mentioned, organized a conference at UCLA in

2003. However, Gaspar de Albas initial goal at writing the novel

was only partially achieved. After finishing it the Fall of 2002, she
spent almost two years looking for a mainstream publisher with no
success. Her emphasis on NAFTA as the main cause of the situa-
tion recall that NAFTA started the same year as the first body was
discovered in Ciudad Jurez as well as her accusations against the
maquiladora industry, may have prevented editors to consider her

manuscript for publication. Her accusations come through the inter-
vention of the authorial voice not only in the Disclaimer and the
Acknowledgments section of the novel, but also within the diegesis.
In the last chapter, the authorial interventions are particularly insis-
tent. Strong accusations bring the reader back to the real events at
Ciudad Jurez: This wasnt a case of whodunit, but rather of who
was allowing these crimes to happen? Whose interests were being
served? Who was covering it up? Who was profiting from the deaths
of all these women? (333).
This last chapter ends with Ivon crossing the border back to El
Paso and turning back to Ciudad Jurez:
She turned her back on the view: La Migra and las colonias, the smoke-
stacks and Cristo Rey, the river a brown snake meandering between
two worlds.
This spot held no more magic for her, now. If anything, it was
the spot where the open wound of the border was most visible, that
place where, as Gloria Anzalda described it, the Third world grates
against the First and bleeds. (335)
Through the third-person narrator, Gaspar de Alba quotes

Anzaldas first chapter of the prose section in Borderlands, and merges
narrative and theory to reflect upon the crimes and their unending
reproducibility. Anzalda, in one of her unpublished manuscripts,
contends that art and theory aggrandize each other. By dealing with
a human rights issue at the border, Gaspar de Albas novel broadens
the scope of dangerous beasts poetics by including global concerns
and by entering a dialogue on globalization. In Desert Blood, the bina-
tional imaginary is still present in the background, but is not prevalent
any more. Border issues are incorporated into a bigger global picture.
In this regard, Gaspar de Alba offers an approach similar to Cisneross
Caramelo, where the rebozo or Mexican shawl is a metaphor for inter-
connectedness among people and narratives globally.
In Desert Blood, Gaspar de Alba also revisits a recurrent theme in
Chicana feminist literature: the absence of the father figure. As in

Moragas play Shadow of a Man (1989), Ivon Villa is in the process of

making familia from scratch. She and her lesbian lover are planning
to adopt a baby. Moreover, Desert Blood explores the idea that Ana
Castillo included in the epigraph to Mixquiahuala, taken from Anas
Nin: I stopped loving my father a long time ago. What remained was
a slavery to a pattern (Mixquiahuala n.p.). In this sense, the Jurez
murders are indicative, according to the novel, of a profound crisis

of male authority and a nostalgic feeling for its lost position both in
the families of women working at the maquiladora and in society in
general. This nostalgia has to do, for example, with the authorities
futile insistence on finding a sole mastermind for the murders in real
life. Sharif was found guilty of just one of the killings in 2002, and
finally died in jail of mysterious circumstances in 2006 (Rodrguez,
Montan and Pulitzer 277).
Bolaos 2666
The nostalgia for a lost figure of authority is also a crucial motif and
preoccupation in Bola os 2666. In his novel, however, the nostalgia
is for an authoritarian figure that controls the narrative. This monu-
mental five-part 1,100-page novel narrates the search of an acclaimed
German novelist, Benno von Archimboldi, by four European uni-
versity professors. They locate Archimboldi in Santa Teresa, the bor-
der city where his nephew, the giant albino Klaus Haas, has been
accused of being a serial killer of poor women. Bolao decentralizes
the USMexico borderlands. Santa Teresa refers to Ciudad Jurez;
the city of El Adobe is El Paso; Klaus Haas, a German American, is
modeled after Sharif, an Egyptian with US citizenship; Los Caciques
stand for Los Rebeldes in real life; and Los Bisontes are Los Choferes.
In the novel, the centrality of a controlling figure is questioned, and
the space is apparently distorted. However, the murders in the city
of Santa Teresa are the structural center of the novel. Femicide at
the border is the point of convergence of multiple narratives whose
interconnections aim to characterize and describe the history of the
Western world in the twentieth century. And the evil found at the
border may also give us hints about the future.5
Bolaos transnational turn, distorting the center versus periphery
model of globalization, clearly resembles the structure of Cisneross
Caramelo. While the centers of Cisneross fictional world are Mexico
City and Celayas family, in 2666 the centers are the city of Santa Teresa
and evil. Moreover, by renaming Ciudad Jurez as Santa Teresa and
using narrative fragmentation as one of his strategies, Bolao also

hints at the body/text metaphor of dismemberment throughout his

novel. The altering and shuffling of narratives about the Jurez murders
reflect the symbolic dismembered body of the city of Santa Teresa.
The main philosophy underneath Bolaos unfinished narrative
project includes the rejection of synthesis and the celebration of the
profusion of narratives and voices in literature. In this sense, his novel
connects not only with the tradition of the novela total in Latin

America but also with writers with similar interests such as Jorge Luis
Borges, Julio Cortzar, Jos Lezama Lima, or Manuel Puig. Bolao
is considered by critics as a metaliterary writer (Goldman 34). 2666
starts with a harsh and convoluted parody about the world of litera-
ture, literary criticism, and academia four professors of literature
in search of an author, Archimboldi. The search leads the critics to
Santa Teresa, where Klaus Haas may be the serial killer of hundreds
of women. Klaus Haas may also be Archimboldi himself, the sole
mastermind of the killings and the sole purpose of the narrative. This
is suggested at the end of the novel in Part 5, after the narration of
Archimboldis life as a synthesis of the history of the Western world
in the twentieth century. On the one hand, Bolaos novel has to be
read in connection with his metaliterary concerns in previous works
such as Los detectives salvajes (1998), where Arturo Belano and Ulises
Lima stand-ins for Bolao and his friend the poet Mario Santiago
Papasquiaro look for the poet Cesrea Tinajero. On the other, if
we zoom in on his hyperrealist account of the murders of women
in Ciudad Jurez in The Part of the Crimes, and on how Bolao
fictionalizes the murders, we can also trace connections between his
monumental novel and radical Chicana poetics.
Bolaos research on the murders is primarily based on his friend
Sergio Gonz lez Rodrguezs Huesos en el desierto. Gonz lez becomes
a character in the novel; keeping his real name is probably a sign of
Bolaos gratitude. The Part of the Crimes is a hyperrealist foren-
sic account of the murder of 110 women. The detailed descriptions
include full names, occupations, family histories, and mutilations of
their bodies. Although it is adorned by at least 11 subplots that
develop simultaneously throughout the 352 pages of Part 4, the over-
whelming atrocity of the narrative about the killings is tedious for
the uninformed reader. However, if we compare the data in the novel
with the real facts about the murders, the results are surprising. This
is what I have done using Mexican scholar Julia Monrrez Fragosos
sociological study of the murders, titled Serial Sexual Femicide in
Ciudad Jurez, 19932001, which, by the way, is also a primary
source for Gaspar de Albas scholarly work about the murders.

Table 6.1 includes the official numbers about the murders from
1993 to 2001, a total of 110; those that have been considered serial
and nonserial, and those resolved and not resolved. Table 6.2 reveals
that in his novel Bolao compresses the same amount of cases, 110,
in the period from 1993 to 1997. A comparison shows how murders
increase gradually in Bolaos novel, while the real facts are more irreg-
ular. Tables 6.3 and 6.4 display the age of the victims and the novels

amazing closeness to reality. Table 6.5 displays the occupation of the
victims and shows how Bolao follows real facts as evidence against
the maquiladora industry just as Gaspar de Alba does in Desert Blood.
Fifteen percent of the victims in Bolaos novel are women working at
the maquiladoras or in relation to them. The biggest difference occurs
in the number of prostitutes: 11.1 percent of the victims in the novel,
and only 1.1 percent according to official numbers.
Bolaos emphasis on prostitution, added to the fact that the kill-
ings are constantly increasing, is initially disturbing. His portrayal
Table 6.1 Serial and Sexual Femicide in Ciudad Ju rez, 19932001
Year Cases Serial Resolved Nonserial Resolved
1993 8 6 0 2 2
1994 7 5 0 2 2
1995 17 15 3 2 1
1996 19 16 6 3 3
1997 16 11 0 5 5
1998 16 15 3 1 0
1999 9 6 4 3 2
2000 6 6 0 0 0
2001 12 9 8 3 0
TOTAL 110 89 24 21 15
(Adapted from Mon rrez Fragoso)
Table 6.2 Femicide in Bola os novel, 19931997
Year Cases Serial Resolved Nonserial Resolved No Info
1993 17 6 0 5 5 6
1994 11 6 0 3 3 2
1995 24 14 1 6 3 4
1996 29 8 1 7 3 14
1997 29 9 0 7 4 13
TOTAL 110 43 2 21 18 39

Table 6.3 Reported Statistics
Age Cases Percentage
1019 45 58.4
2029 22 28.6
3042 10 13
TOTAL 77 100

(Adapted from Mon rrez Fragoso)
Table 6.4 Ages in Bola os 2666
Age Cases Percentage
1019 47 53.4
2029 26 29.5
3039 13 14.8
4050 2 2.2
TOTAL 88 100
Table 6.5 Occupational Statistics
Reported Statistics Bola os 2666
Occupation Cases Percent Cases Percent
Housewife 1 1.1 1 1
Bartender 2 2.2 8 8.2
Drug Addict 1 1.1 2 2.1
Employee/Student 8 9 4 4
Maquiladora worker 20 20.2 15 15.1
Clerk 1 1.1 1 1
Prostitute 1 1.1 11 11.1
Other 54 63.1 57 57.5
TOTAL 89 100 99 100
may support the sexualization of the female body and the recurrence
of the same old story of the prostitute who deserves the punish-
ment. We have to remember that one of the arguments of Mexican
authorities has been that women in Ciudad Jurez are provoking
men to commit these crimes wearing small tight clothes and looking
dirty.

However, there may also be legitimate reasons for Bolaos empha-

sis on prostitution. First, he follows Gonz lez Rodrguezs focus on
the role of prostitution in the killings. In the novel, the character
of Sergio Gonz lez himself asks a prostitute about the killings. The
prostitute states that the women that are being murdered are not
whores, but women who work to support themselves and their fami-
lies. This may be part of Bolaos interest in including multiple voices

and perspectives about the case. He includes the voices of prostitutes,
victims, and families in the novel just like Rosario Sanmiguel in her
short stories, or Fuentes in Malintzin de las Maquilas.
As in Portillos Seorita extraviada, Bolaos narrative under-
scores the fact that poor brown womens desire to express their iden-
tity through their looks ends up being a dangerous provocation in
the patriarchal setting of Santa Teresa/Ciudad Jurez. Minding their
appearance, poor mestiza women expose themselves to be perceived
as dangerous beasts. The many ambiguities and disturbances in
Bolaos text reveal the inevitability of the exotization of the murders.
His focus on prostitution hints at the mythification of the killings
and the inclusion of femicide as part of the social imaginary about
the borderlands. Contrary to Fuentess description of maquiladora
women workers as Malinches, and his emphasis on the colonizing
experience in the construction of Mexican identity, Bola os mythifi-
cation goes beyond the binational by connecting with global histories
and the future of humanity.
Conclusion
In Desert Blood and 2666, the Jurez murders are publicized in ways
that are not restricted to one-dimensional vision of the border from
one side or a binational vision of the border. Narrativizing the vio-
lation of human rights in the borderlands elevates border issues to
global concerns. Both novels invite us to adopt a decentered, atrave-
sada position that allows us to see beyond the apparent centrality of
the binational aspect of the border, and beyond gender and sexuality
constructs.
According to Gonz lez Rodrguez, in Ciudad Jurez the femi-
cide machine provokes the proliferation of discourses and prac-
tices, including the copycat effect, protecting the attackers and their
supporters. Activists responses need to be multifarious and trans-
disciplinary. Activism becomes itinerant, nomadic, and movable.
Following Rosi Braidotti and her concept of nomadic subjects, our
task as nomadic cultural critics must start by recognizing that not

one single central strategy of resistance is possible (7). Our nomadic

ethics must be based, following Braidotti, on centrelessness and
flexibility. Transborder literary criticism should always promote tran-
scultural and transdisciplinary studies that value some central tenets
of radical Chicana poetics such as tolerance for contradictions, con-
tingencyday-to-day risking and deciding,and the healing pow-
ers of writing about ones own identity.

A more general conclusion leads us to consider exotization as inevi-
table in the processes of narrativization of violations of human rights.
In these processes, literature and the arts may play a crucial role that
must be recognized by human rights authorities, organizations, and
activists. Literature and the arts, used from the privileged position
that published Chican@ and Latin@ writers and tenured scholars such
as Gaspar de Alba have, are useful means to publicize human rights
violations. Literary and artistic renditions of border issues participate
in the construction of a human rights discourse that may be poten-
tially liberatory. Most importantly, creativity and the imagination
may lead us to question how human rights discourses and discourses
on gender violence may be at times perpetuating the status quo. In
this sense, following French philosopher Alain Badiou, my analysis
highlights the importance of literature and the arts in a search of an
ethics of truths, in the plural. This search must promote our con-
stant interrogation of human rights discourses that tend to be based,
according to Badiou, on a negative idea of the human as a victim
(Badiou 10).
This approach to ethics is, I believe, very close to radical Chicanas
and their positive vision of difference. Radical Chicanas global inter-
ventions, as exemplified by their leadership in denouncing grave
human rights at the USMexico border, participate in the constant
interrogation of human rights discourses, especially by reminding
activists and government agencies about the need to recognize the
power of aesthetic education and revolutionary art.

Epilogue
The Coyolxauhqui Imperative

and the Critic
S peaking for others is a common practice in academia that should

not be addressed too much unless we want to single ourselves out,
play with the double binds of political correctness, or defy traditional
conventions about elitism and authority. However, in the many fields
within Ethnic and Feminist studies, the practice of speaking for oth-
ers has always been suspicious, or at least the object of severe scrutiny
for obvious and many times justified reasons. In one of the essays
included in Who Can Speak? (1995), Andrew Lakritz explores how
authority functions when intellectuals speak for others. Analyzing the
cases of Ralph Ellison and Hannah Arendt, who at some point spoke
for black women from their own positions as a black man and as a
Jewish woman, Lakritz explains how notions of authority in academia
generally reflect two positions: (1) that scholars launch their critique
from their own experience as authentic members of the group, claim-
ing that outsiders have no access to the truths of their culture; and
(2) that critics own authority by their long and careful study of
research (25). As products of their time, Ellison and Arendt did
not have to address their condition as outsiders because they enjoyed
what Ellison called Olympian authority. This is not exactly the case
in Ethnic and Womens studies since their creation as academic disci-
plines in the late 1960s.
Today in Chican@ studies, in a stage that goes beyond ethnon-
ationalism, non-Chicano Chican@ studies scholars are welcome to
participate. Their names and their initiatives and collaborations are
desirable as part of organizations and publications in order to estab-
lish global connections. Chican@/Latin@ scholars have consolidated
permanent collaborative networks in Europemainly in Germany,

France, Spain, and Russiaand even in the Arab world (Bost and
Aparicio 10730). However, the situation is slightly different with
regard to non-Chicano scholars who do Chican@ studies in the
United States.
As I explained in the Disclaimer, my experience as that of many
others in my situation has been contradictory and caught up in dou-
ble binds. On the one hand, I have been generously welcomed with

brazos abiertos by Chican@ scholars as a researcher who writes about
them, and who even admires them. On the other, I have been scru-
tinized and treated with disregard when, for example, I have sent my
research for publication in their journals. Moreover, when impor-
tant academic and even hiring decisions are to be made, my diasporic-
ity does not help. When I applied for a Chicano studies position in a
top southwest university, one of the members of the search committee
openly asked: How can we hire a Spaniard to teach Chicano studies
in an English Department? As an outside-insider I have to constantly
be aware of these double binds. My situation gets even more compli-
cated, being a supposedly straight man specializing in radical feminist
thought and queer theories.
What happens in the context of postnationalistic ethnic and gender
identities is complex. Gender and ethnic groups in academia replicate
some of the domesticating strategies of dominant groups. They want
to get credit for including your name as an outsider collaborator and
admirer, but will not grant you access to their hard-won and exclusive
circles of power. The phenomenon is similar to what happens with the
idea of nation and nationalism. There is a desire to go beyond ethnon-
ationalistic views, but certainly not to really be postnationalistic it
does not matter whether the term is understood as beyond nationalism
or antinationalism. In the case of Chican@ studies, everyday language
reflects a more or less unconscious nostalgia for the ethnonationalistic
approaches of the early Chicano Movement. Researchers still have a
strong tendency to generalize the use of Chicana/o scholar, instead
of Chican@ studies scholar, which would include both Chicanas/os
and non-Chicanas/os.
Going back to Lakritzs discussion, questions of authority vary
substantially depending on the rank or the level of politization of the
field you work in. Doing interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary work
across highly politicized fields can be the source of tremendous anxi-
ety. But what interests me about Lakritzs reflections is his conclusion.
He argues that, in general, in the 1990s multiculturalist academic
environment what we may call today postnational or transnational
or global the crucial question for the outsider critic is how to write

EPILOGUE 183
about others rather than who can speak. His optimistic approach
in the early 1990s is surprising. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in her
2012 book An Aesthetic Education in the Era of Globalization still
feels compelled to address her positionality, even though she enjoys
Olympian authority in postcolonial Feminist studies. And she does
so because of still being continually interpellated to give an account
of herself as a scholar speaking for others:

I repeat that I find it tedious to go on endlessly about my particular
diasporicity. Come what may, I cannot think of what used to be called
the brain drain as either exile or diaspora. I feel that as a literary
intellectual, I am here to use my imagination, not only to imagine the
predicament of diaspora, exile, refuge, but also to deny resolutely that
the manifest destiny of the United States is (to appear) to give asylum
to the world. As such, I often have to confront the question of speak-
ing for groups that are not my own.
I have responded to this question so many times that a particular
reference would be silly. Yet I seem never to be heard. Let me repeat
then. Why has this Enlightenment model of parliamentary democracy
(representing a constituency, speaking for them) become the master-
model for rejection of diasporic academic work? Why has the impera-
tive to imagine the other responsibly been lifted? (Spivak, Aesthetic
Education xiv)
Radical Chicana Poetics shows the compelling accumulation of per-

spectives, methods, and materials that shape what I have called dan-
gerous beasts poetics, as well as the explicit and implicit debates that
conform it as an ongoing collective oppositional methodology. As I
highlighted, it is a continuous process of altering, discarding, adding,
and reshuffling. One way of approaching this process could be to use
the six elements that I suggest in the juncture essays polycentricity,
collective creativity, nepantlism, antiacademicism, interconnectivity,
and transdisciplinarity as points of entry into the study of Chicana
thought. However, my cartography is just one possible and contin-
gent mapping of radical Chicana poetics. Using Braidottis nomadic
metaphor, my goal has been to give a horizon so that readers can
set up their own tent as they wish.
My genealogical and pseudochronological approach to the writers
in this book shows the outward, expansive movement of their poet-
ics. We can observe that, despite their continuous engagements and
disengagements with their own theories and cultural production and
those of others, their corpus of thought seems to be reaching out
to other traditions, practices, and systems of knowledge increasingly

over the years. And as products of their times, radical Chicanas inter-
ests have veered toward participating in contemporary debates about
transnationalism and global justice.
In this context, as I said in my disclaimer, I believe it is time to
move on toward debating the possibilities of nos/otros scholarship in
Chican@ studies, Feminist and Queer studies, and all the fields that
intersect in this book. This would be also a debate that would enrich

dialogues about transdisciplinary methodological issues. For these
debates, we need figurations of the outside-insider critical subject.
A first step toward a nos/otros scholarship would certainly need to
deal with Lakritzs questions above and, in my case, to challenge the
postnational atmosphere of ethnonationalistic nostalgia in Chican@
studies, and of separatist nostalgia in Feminist studies.
For me the order in which we ask the questions is important.
How to write about others should go first. However, our internal-
ized Enlightenment ideas, as Spivak would say, continually lead
us to think about individuals and their affiliations first, rather than
evaluating their methodology, their perspective, and the value of
their research.
In this book, of course, I did not follow the order I believe is best.
My Disclaimer attempted to answer the question can I speak? per
the request of those whom I study and who advised me that if I did not
position myself from the beginning, most readers in the field would
discard my book and not even read it. My strategy also followed tra-
ditional detective fiction narratives, placing the assassination/mystery
in the first pages in order to engage the reader with a playful capta-
tio malevolentiae. What comes after the Disclaimer, the book Radical
Chicana Poetics, is what really matters. The contents and structure of
my research in this book answer what for me is the main question: how
to write about radical Chicana poetics from a nos/otros position.
Anzaldas Coyolxauhqui imperative includes what Spivak calls
the imperative to imagine the other responsibly. Her words lead
me to another question: What ethics do I follow? My answers to both
questions have emerged during the creative and scholarly process of
writing this book. I have been influenced by a nos/otros desire or
Coyolxauhqui imperative to re-member. Both radical Chicana theories
and my own research tools have attracted each other to the point of
(con)fusing. I have followed some of the strategies of Chicana thinkers
and used some of their tools, but have also added my own. Of course,
my own have been carefully selected taking into consideration their
proximity and affinity to Chicana feminists own mentality, vision,
lived realities, and experiences of oppression. I have enjoyed the fact

EPILOGUE 185
that I am examining a corpus of thought and cultural production that

is alive and ongoing. Theoretical notions, figurations, and metaphors
have inevitably become part of my philosophy, and Chicana authors
have become role models in many ways. I get to share their language
and their tools, but I also follow their disidentificatory ethics and
tolerance for ambiguities.
In my efforts to imagine the other responsibly, I reworked

radical Chicanas analytic tools. The Coyolxauhqui imperative has
become my imperative while writing. Anzaldas writing manual
and autohistora-teora Putting Coyolxauhqui Together has been
especially helpful. In this regard, her predraft questions have strongly
influenced my narrative strategies along the way:
How and from what point of view am I going to tell the story? What
mood do I want to evoke and sustain? What emotion does it arouse in
me? What emotion do I want to arouse in the reader? How much of
myself should I put into the text? (Anzada, Putting 246)
Finally, my transformation during the writing process has included

rites of passage from my own cultural schizophrenia as an immi-
grant and diasporic thinker to my particular border consciousness
as an independent intellectual, following Gaspar de Albas terminol-
ogy. In a way, I have also learned how to explain myself through radi-
cal Chicanas language and thought, and how to look through their
lenses in my scholarship and my everyday role as an educator. In this
sense, I hope that my book becomes part of the project of shaping
dangerous beasts poetics.
Nevertheless, I am aware of the perils of appropriation. In this
regard, I have taken into account Moragas warnings to her peers
about how others can appropriate and misinterpret Chican@s ideas,
especially in academia. To what extent should I use the language of
dangerous beasts poetics that is, the Xicana codex in new con-
texts, in cultural analyses that are not restricted to Chicana/Latina/
atravesado cultural production? The Coyolxauhqui imperative seems
to me a valid and effective visual conceptualization of the writing
process as a way of constructing identity. Should I use it as a tool
in my cultural criticism and my teaching? Instead of Coyolxauhqui,
should I coin a new technical term, something like the togetherness
of writing, or writing as togetherness? Would that not be plagia-
rism, an extreme form of appropriation?
A position of resistance from inside dangerous beasts poetics, or
from those who feel entitled to occupy that political location, might

challenge my right to use Coyolxauhqui or Xicana codex as concepts,

questioning my right to speak for them. On the contrary, a position
of benevolence would be open to considering a dialogue and looking
for consensus, and would even welcome the fact that Chicana phi-
losophies have the potential to reach and influence others. Mi final
call, in this contention, is a captatio benevolentiae.

Notes

Introduction Fearing the Dangerous Beasts:
1. Francisco Lomel, Teresa M rquez, and Mar a Herrera-Sobek
identify ten Chicana authors whose landmark works were pub-
lished around those years: Helena Mar a Viramontes, Cecile Pineda,
Sandra Cisneros, Cherre Moraga, Denise Chvez, Pat Mora, Mary
Helen Ponce, Laura del Fuego, Gloria Anzalda, Margarita Cota
C rdenas, and Ana Castillo (Lomel, M rquez, and Herrera-Sobek
290). The publication boom that started in 1985 and continued into
the early 1990s included Latina writers in general, not only Chicanas.
Puerto Rican Nicolasa Mohr, who started writing in the early 1970s,
published six novels between 1985 and 1995. Puerto Rican writers
Carmen de Monteflores and Judith Ortiz Cofer started publishing
in 1989, and later Esmeralda Santiago in 1993; Dominican-raised
Julia lvarez published her first work in 1991. The phenomenon is
analyzed by Ellen McCracken in the context of the interest on post-
modern ethnicities in the publishing market, studying how Latina
writers negotiate their position as the exotic Other (McCracken,
New Latina Narrative 4).
2. In 1985, coinciding with this publication boom, Marta E. S nchez
published her first book-lentgh study on Chicana poetry and already
pointed out the existence of a feminist I. The phenomenon cre-
ated great expectations, as noted for example in Chicana critic
Yvonne Yarbro-Bejaranos words in her prologue to Helena Mar a
Viramontess short story collection The Moth and Other Stories in
1985:
The current effervescence of Chicana writers is a tribute to their
strength and determination to be heard, given the nature of the
obstacles which lie in their past. The Chicana writers share with
all women writers the problem of breaking into a male dominated
industry, but they must overcome others related to class and race as
well. (Yarbro-Bejarano, Introduction 9)
Also in 1985, in an essay titled The Maturing of Chicana
Poetry: The Quiet Revolution of the 1980s, Tey Diana Rebolledo

188 NOTES
asked herself about the meaning of this multiplication of texts and

authors:
What does all this ferment, outpouring, and explosion of writings
by Chicanas and interest in their work mean? At this moment Chicana
literature is coming into its own. The angry writings arising from the
bitterness of exclusion have diminished. [ . . . ] Silent for too long, the
excitement of discovering their ability and potential has turned into a
quiet revolution of writing. (Rebolledo 145)

In her analysis of poems by Angela de Hoyos, Margarita Cota-
C rdenas, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Bernice Zamora, Beverly Silva,
Pat Mora, Evangelina Vigil, Elena Guadalupe Rodrguez, Lucha
Corpi, and Sandra Cisneros, Tey Diana Rebolledo already notices an
evolution from the type of strictly social commentaries about the
oppression of the system and of the oppression of the male machista
tradition that occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s to social
judgments [that] are better integrated into the structure of poetic
discourse (146). In other words, Rebolledo points out Chicanas
increasing preoccupation with literary craftsmanship. Both Yvonne
Yarbro-Bejarano and Tey Diana Rebolledo are examples of the emer-
gence of a feminist literary criticism in the field of Chican@ letters
in the 1980s. This alternative trend paid closer attention to Chicana
writers texts and motivations. Another outstanding example may be
the collection of articles Beyond Stereotypes: The Critical Analysis of
Chicana Literature (1985), edited by Mar a Herrera-Sobek as a result
of the conference New Perspectives in Literature: Chicana Novelists
and Poets at the University of California, Irvine, held in 1982. Its
title is representative of the beginnings of Chicana feminist literary
criticism. The essays focused on how Chicana writings were breaking
stereotypes about gender, their rejection of sexist behaviors within
the Chicano Movement and, most of all, their interest in the figure of
the Chicana writer as a role model within Chican@ communities.
3. I use the popular edition of I am Joaqun that Gloria Anzalda her-
self cites in Borderlands/La Frontera as one of the first Chicano liter-
ary texts that she had access to in the 1960s (81, 119). At that time,
Gonzales gives voice to the Chicano subaltern within the ethnic
internal diversity of the United States, drawing on common patterns
in US ethnic literature: the motif of the spiritual journey or pilgrim-
age, and the use of the epic genre (Sollors 650, 661).
4. Appiah follows Ian Hackings philosophical investigations on label-
ing theory as the one which asserts that social reality is condi-
tioned, stabilized, or even created by the labels we apply to people,
actions, and communities (Hacking 226). In referring to identities
as kinds of persons, Hacking describes the continuous redefinition
of roles in society, drawing on Foucaults conception of the subject
and Jean Paul Sartres views on individualism.

NOTES 189
5. This social-constructivist conception of identity emerged from stud-

ies on social psychology, and became common during the US civil
rights movements (Appiah 65).
6. Luis Arenal (19091985) belonged to the group of painters who
assisted well-known Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros.
7. The note on this illustration at the end of the book says Worshiper
at the outdoor Easter Mass held at the UFWOCs headquarters in
Delano, California, 1967 (121).

1 Gloria Anzaldas Poetics: The Process
of Writing Borderlands/La Frontera
1. Anzalda herself explains how writing is for her an obsession that she
tries to dominate and control. It was not until I consulted her papers
at the University of Texas, Austin, that I realized the extent of her
obsession, and how the proliferation of her writing and her struggle
to organize and reorganize her ideas, positioning and repositioning
herself, engaging and disengaging, made her consider writing as a
living hell that she had to go through due to her position as a
spokesperson for women of color.
2. In Borderlands and in other works and interviews, Anzalda shows
special interest in her Basque origins.
3. It is clear that Anzaldas poems include a vocabulary that resonates
with that of the Spanish mystic tradition. The path of conocimiento
can be read vis-a-vis the Spanish mystic tradition as long as we do not
lose sight of the different contexts and goals of each of Anzaldas
texts.
4. In a letter dated 23 September 1981, immediately after the publica-
tion of This Bridge, Anzalda sent the first chapter of her novel in
progress Andrea to Norma Alarcn, editor of Third Woman Press.
She explained that she was working on three poetry collections,
entitled Tres lenguas de fuego, Mito moderno, and More len-
guas de fuego. She was also working on a one act play entitled La
Chingada: A Poem-Play with Music, Dance, Song, and Ritual. In
her 1990 interview with Hctor Torres, Anzalda explains how she
was putting together some stories that she first wrote in 19741976,
that she is calling Entre Guerras, Entre Mundos.
5. In one of the latest drafts before publication, the editor wrote a com-
ment in the margins expressing her doubts about whether Anzalda
should include the border as herida abierta. The editor not only
ignored the cultural tradition en espa ol that has traditionally used
this metaphor for liminal states (Vivancos Prez, La frontera es her-
ida abierta), but also the connection that, in Anzaldas writings,
this trope has with the process of writing and identity formation, as
well as with the preservation of embodiment.

190 NOTES
6. In order to analyze the Coyolxauhqui process involved in writ-

ing Borderlands, I also focused on four questions that may deserve
further consideration: (1) What poems are only present in the 1985
draft? (2) What poems are only in the 1986 draft? (3) What poems are
in the 1985 and 1986 drafts, but not in the published 1987 version?
And (4) are there any poems in the final 1987 version that are new?:
I. There are 7 poems that appeared only in the April 1985 manu-
script: Entering into the Serpent, Poets (section II), The

Dark Muse (section II), The Enemy of the State (section II),
Encountering the Medusa (section III), Wolf (section III),
and Serpent Woman (section V)
II. 21 poems appear only in the table of contents of the October
1986 manuscript: herida abierta (II), La cuna (II), Chistes
tejanos/Texas jokes (III), Gente de sombra/sin papeles (III),
Carta a to David (III), How We Became Nopal (III),
Alien Voices (III), Across the Bridge to Reynosa (IV), La
mujer que se visti de hombre y cruz la frontera (IV), Breasts
with Penis (IV), Esta mujer (IV), The Occupant (IV),
Nightvoice (IV), Buses Dont Run On Sundays, Amigo
(IV), Old Loyalties (IV), Ballad of the Imsomniac (VI),
Senses Drowning (VI), Conjuro para provocar amor (VI),
I Crawl Away From You, Raza (VII), Dont Give It a Name
(VII), and Meta-Mexicana (VII)
III. 2 poems are included in the 1985 and the 1986 drafts, but not
in the published version: Tihueque (85, I; 86, VII), and Del
otro lado (85, II; 86, IV)
IV. None of the poems in the published version were added after
October 1986
Five of this poems have appeared in the Gloria Anzalda Reader:
The Enemy of the State, Encountering the Medusa, The
Occupant, Tihueque, and Del otro lado. The first two were
previously unpublished. Tihueque was Alzaldas first publica-
tion in Tejidos in 1974, and Del otro lado opened the anthology
Compaeras: Latina Lesbians (1994).
7. Alma L pezs mural Las Four was attacked by young men from the
projects at the Community Center of the Estrada Courts in Boyle
Heights, Los Angeles, where it was first installed in 1997. They
pulled down the vinyl mural and slashed it because they did not
like the choice of the image. They felt L pez and her collaborators
should have chosen better girls (Fitzcallaghan Jones 64). L pezs
groundbreaking artwork has been repeatedly targeted and censored
for including sacred icons with perceived profane elements. The col-
lection of essays Our Lady of Controversy: Alma Lpezs Irreverent
Apparition (2011) has recently examined and contested the censorship
of L pezs digital collage Our Lady at the Museum of International
Folk Art in Santa Fe in February 2001. As Kathleen Fitzcallaghan

NOTES 191
Jones argues [i]n both cases, Our Lady and Las Four, men were
threatened by what they perceived the works to be saying about their
(the mens) position in the communities (Fitzcallaghan Jones 64).
Their attack was motivated by their perception of the artist and her
collaborators as dangerous beasts, as women of color artists in posi-
tions of power.

2 Cherre Moragas Theory in the Flesh and
the Chicana Subject
1. The heading on the first page of the manuscript states Forthcoming
in The Sexuality of the Latina, Third Woman, Fall 1988. The
anthology The Sexuality of Latinas was not published until 1993. This
means that Anzalda received this review soon after the publication of
Borderlands. The annotations in the margins suggest that Anzalda
was making comments to Moraga herself. However, the text of the
manuscript is faithful to the published 1993 version. If Moraga knew
of Anzaldas comments, she still did not change the text.
2. Moraga describes how her work as coeditor of This Bridge was instru-
mental to her final version of Loving, in which she added her auto-
biographical essays about her family to a previous 1980 manuscript.
First, This Bridge helped her to focus on the intersection of race,
class, and sexuality in the understanding of her identity. Second, it
helped her realize that political change cant be theoretical. Its got
to be from your heart (Alarcn, Interview 129).
3. The analogy between body and land for women and queers of color
refers to the symbolic decolonization of their bodies by traditional
patriarchal and xenophobic constructs found in institutions and leg-
islations. In Queer Aztl n, Moraga uses the term decolonizing,
which comes from cultural criticism, to allude to the symbolic dis-
memberment of Chicana and mestiza bodies, despite her continuous
rejection of academic jargon (Moraga, Last 150).
4. She notes this evolution in her introduction to the expanded 2000
edition of Loving in the War Years (Moraga, Loving iv).
5. Moragas discourse on the body has been extensively analyzed by
Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano in tandem with other Chicana and Latina
artistic representations (Wounded ).
6. These three representations of Tonantzin converge with the cult of
the Virgin of Guadalupe symbolically in Tepeyacac where, accord-
ing to seventeenth century Spanish explorer Luis Lasso de la Vega,
a church devoted to the Virgin of Guadalupe was established in
the place where Tonantzin was worshipped. This syncretism is
present in the understanding of myth by the members of Teatro
Campesino. There is a clear connection with the multiple represen-
tations of the Virgin Mary in Catholicism that Mariology studies.
However, Yolanda Broyles-Gonz lez does not mention at any time

192 NOTES
this connection. Chicana feminists like Gloria Anzalda, Cherr e

Moraga and many others do pay attention to this syncretism by, for
example, rehabilitating the Virgin of Guadalupe as a feminist icon.
See Castillo, Diosa, and Trujillo, Virgen.
7. Here the difference lies also in Anzaldas and Moragas understand-
ing of desire. Anzalda sees the origins of desire in the mental and
the metaphysical, while Moraga gives primacy to the materiality of
the flesh and the interaction of the body.

8. Moraga has used war metaphors extensively. In This Bridge, she
describes women of colors strategy toward liberation as guerrilla
warfare. She also uses war metaphors in the poem that gives the title
to her first book Loving in the War Years, as well as in some scenes in
her plays such as the initial scene in Heroes and Saints.
9. I follow Harry Elam Jr.s (1997) definition of social protest perfor-
mances. As opposed to radical theater, Elam defines social protest
performances as
Those performances that have an explicit social purpose, that
direct their audiences to social action. [They] emerge solely from
marginalized peoples and oppositional positions [and] function
as counterhegemonic strategies through which underrepresented
groups challenge the dominant social order and agitate for change.
The representational apparatus of the social protests performance
serves to reinforce, reimagine, and rearticulate the objectives of
social and political resistance. (Elam 141)
10. Both plays are in the tradition of the docudrama, a hybrid genre
that was developed during the 1970s by Chicano theater groups like
Teatro de la Esperanza. It incorporated research methods and docu-
mentary techniques to the writing and representation of plays that
dramatized real events, which included social right issues affecting
Chican@ communities.
11. It is interesting to observe how highly Moraga values The Hungry
Woman in relation to her other plays. Regarding Watsonville, for
example, Moraga states that the plays in conversation with an out-
side source and myself as the internal source while [s]omething
like Medea is all my own preoccupations (Greene 322).
12. Even though the title refers to the two main myths that are explored
in the text, Coyolxauhqui and the idea of dismemberment and re-
membering are still in the background in this play, especially at the
level of style, where body parts are constantly metaphorized.
13. As Moraga explains in her self-reflective narratives, the two cohering
themes of her work family and nation are equally important in
the story of Medea. In the play, she tries to condense all her preoc-
cupations as an artist. However, according to Moraga, the play was
hard to produce. After several staged readings since 1995, it finally
received its world premiere at Celebration Theater in Los Angeles in
October 2002, directed by Adelina Anthony. The West Press edition

NOTES 193
of the play mentions two staged readings of a version in progress in

1995, and one in 1997. As a full-length play, it was presented as a
staged reading for the first time in 1999, and twice in 2000. In 2002,
during the Third International Conference on Chicano Literature, a
version of the play was performed in Spanish. In the United States,
there was a second production in April 2006 at Brown University,
directed by Patricia Ybarra.
14. Surprisingly, Moraga mentions a novel as one of her next projects,

a genre that she has not considered as being much in line with the
coherence of her career (Ikas 171). In Sour Grapes, she favors dra-
matic writing over writing novels when she states that dramatic writ-
ing requires a small army, while novels are the work of a tenacious
writer (Moraga, Loving 156).
15. Luis Valdez wrote this play when he was a student. It was produced
at San Jos State College, where he studied, in January 1964, a year
and a half before he founded Teatro Campesino (Huerta 27).
16. The audience goes from spectator to participant at the end of the
play. EL PUEBLO not only represents a group of characters,
but also involves the audience. Therefore, everybody in the theater,
including the audience, screams Asesinos! Asesinos! Asesinos!
In the published version of the play, EL PUEBLO is described
as the children and mothers of McLaughlin; THE PEOPLE/
PROTESTORS/AUDIENCE PARTICIPATING in the struggle
(ideally, EL PUEBLO should be made up of an ensemble of people
from the local Latino Community) (90). The strategy, common to
social protest performances, incites the audience to take action. The
theater experience becomes a ritual enactment of transformative and
regenerative implications. For an analysis of the relationship of ritual
and social protest performance in the Black Revolutionary Theater
and Teatro Campesino, see Harry Elam Jr. (117).
3 The Nomadic Chicana Writer in

Ana Castillo and Emma Prez
1. An earlier title for the anthology was A Woman to Woman Dialogue:
A Radical Third World Womens Anthology, as noted by AnaLouise
Keating in her chronology of Gloria Anzaldas life (Anzalda,
Gloria 326).
2. As a subgenre in experimental feminist theater and performance, the
choreopoem is developed by Ntozake Shange in for colored girls
who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975). For a
discussion of this play see Mael. Teatropoesa, a variant explored
by Chicana playwrights in the 1980s is studied by Yvonne Yarbro-
Bejarano (Teatropoesa).
3. For Viego, the Real is the name Lacan gives to the order pertaining
to a hypothesized fullness of being prior to the moment when the

194 NOTES
vector representing the movement of life as experienced by the mythic

organism of needs is intersected by the vector of language, S S. What
is lost by the human organism when it is inscribed in language persists
as a remainder, as a remnant of the Real, but it persists as something
that cannot be rendered as such in language and that, at the same time,
compels all ongoing future attempts at symbolization (Viego 169).
4. In this regard, Viegos comments about Chicana historians can be
applied to Chicana writers and scholars in general: Chicana histo-

rians, queer or not, have always been construed as significantly dan-
gerous and we should read Prezs project as dangerous, brilliantly
so, because she wants to remap some of the past, to keep whatever
may qualify as evidence of a past up for contention within Chicano
studies (Viego 175).
4 Alicia Gaspar de Albas Sor Juana

as Symbolic Foremother
1. Enrico Mario Sant calls this processes of mythification of Sor Juana
the politics of restitution. It is impossible to know Sor Juanas
truths (Sant 129). In fact, what is important is how her figure
channels our own political location. For me, these processes result in
a fair number of Sor Juanas that are available for perusal and that
inevitably blur our access to the original.
2. In reinventing Sor Juana, Gaspar de Alba follows Anzaldas theo-
rization of the New Mestiza consciousness in Borderlands taking
inventory, purging, and reinventing. Analyzing the works of visual
artists, Carla Trujillos reflections about Chicana lesbians reinven-
tions of the Virgin of Guadalupe clarify Gaspar de Albas approach to
myth making. Chicana lesbians reconfigure Guadalupe as a bodily
representation of desire that serves not only to liberate those who
emulate her but to validate lesbians and other women who claim her
as part of a representation of themselves (Trujillo 226). Trujillos
conclusion conveys a powerful message that will be present in every
recreation of a myth in Chicana thought:
La Virgen de Guadalupe is as much ours, as Chicana lesbians,
as anyone elses. We can reconstruct all that we wish in order to
live our lives as Chicanas and lesbianas in as healthy and fulfill-
ing a manner as possible. In this effort, the quest for redefinition
of identity, sexuality, and familia generates new ideologies which
simultaneously draw and incorporate motifs from the wealth of
attributes long associated with La Virgen de Guadalupe. La Virgen
de Guadalupe, whom we identify and transform, doesnt become
our Virgen. She remains it. (Trujillo 227)
3. In other poems, clothes and accessories have different meanings in
relation to memory and bonding. In Shoes: Requiem for Ramona,
the sandals that the poetic persona gave to the late Ramona as a

NOTES 195
present represent their bonding and everlasting friendship in mem-

ory. The huaraches or Famolare sandals keep the memories of
Ramona alive in the speaker, trascending death and creating strong
bonds among women. As I will analyze in chapter 6, the sandals
and shoes of the dead women in Lourdes Portillos documentary
about the Ju rez murders, Seorita extraviada, will become power-
ful images that insist on the dismemberment of both the body of the
Chicana and the community of women.

4. Gaspar de Albas election of the myth of Pandora deserves atten-
tion. It connects with her interests in visual cultures and the position
of viewers in relation to the power structure. The echoes of Laura
Mulveys feminist interpretation of the myth resonate in the novel.
Mulveys interpretation is as follows:
Fashioned by the gods to be given to man in exchange for fire,
Pandoras beauty concealed that which was sheer guile not to be
withstood by men. Her mythology is embellished by her icono-
graphical attribute, the box from which she released trouble into
the world . . . [T]he box, and its motif of inside/outside echoes the
motif of Pandoras exterior beauty/interior duplicity. (x-xi)
5. Nonfictional prose was the genre used for history and philosophy at
the time, while the long poem was used for fiction (Paz 480).
6. Following the nuns wish, all these materials are burned except for
the Litany in the Subjunctive that serves as the epilogue. However,
the novel includes excerpts and fragments coming from Pandoras
box that are only revealed to the reader. While the real Sor Juana
wrote her Primero Sueo sin interrupciones ni divisiones fijas: un
verdadero discurso, according to Paz (Paz 483), Sor Juanas second
dream in her Pandoras box emerges in letters and journal excerpts as
a second narrative level in a nondialectical way, as an encyclopedia of
affects, in the way that Roland Barthes describes a lovers discourse:
Amorous dis-cursus is not dialectical; it turns like a perpetual calen-
dar, an encyclopedia of affective culture (Barthes 7). As Sor Juanas
second dream, the contents of Pandoras box are partially revealed as
fragments of the nuns discourse as a lover.
7. The meaning of dreams in the novel goes beyond their Freudian tra-
ditional definition as realizations of a repressed desire. Alicia Gaspar
de Alba agains disidentifies with another Master of the Game, as
Castillo did with Cortzar.
8. This tradition is what Paz explains in some 50 pages of his book on
Sor Juana as a necessary step in the contextualization of her life and
works (Paz 469507).
9. De Lauretiss investigations about the performativity of sexuality
through cultural production are worth mentioning here. She con-
ceives sexuality
as a semiosic process [somatic mental process] in which the
subjects desire is the result of a series of significant effects

196 NOTES
(conscious and unconscious interpretants, so to speak) that are

contingent upon a personal and a social history; whereby history
I mean the particular configurations of discourses, representa-
tions and practicesfamilial and broadly institutional, cultural
and subcultural, public and privatethat the subject crosses and
that in turn traverse the subject according to the contingencies
of each subjects singular existence in the world. I want to argue
that sexuality is one form of (self-)representation, and fantasy is

one specific instance of the more general process of semiosis,
which enjoins subjectivity to social signification and to reality
itself. (Lauretis 303)
10. While the narrator in Gulf Dreams suggests that sexual pleasure is
possible through words and dialogue, Gaspar de Alba tries to materi-
alize this possibility in some of her poems, in which textual pleasure is
achieved by declamation. Her interest in poetic recitation and declam-
atory speech can be studied in relation to Roland Barthess ideas on
the pleasure of the text and how this way of writing is closer to the
genotext, or Kristevas semiotic (Vivancos Prez, Secret 438).
11. Juana Ins de la Cruz herself explains her eclectic academic forma-
tion in her Respuesta:
Y as, por tener algunos principios granjeados, estudiaba con-
tinuamente diversas cosas, sin tener para alguna particular incli-
nacin, sino para todas en general; por lo cual, el haber estudiado
en unas ms que en otras no ha sido en m eleccin, sino que el
acaso de haber topado ms a mano libros de aquellas facultades les
ha dado, sin arbitrio m o, la preferencia. (Cruz, Poems 22)
5 Weaving Texts and Selves in

Sandra Cisneross Caramelo
1. Some fictional works published in the Fall of 2002 were Alma Luz
Villanuevas Lunas California Poppies (November 2002), Ixta Maya
Murrays The Conquest (October 2002), Josie Mndez-Negretes fic-
tional autobiography Las hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed (2002),
and the Spanish translation of Denise Chvezs Loving Pedro Infante:
A Novel (November 2002).
2. The authorial I herself explains the meaning of piln at the begin-
ning of the section: Like the Mexican grocer who gives you a piln,
something extra tossed into your bag as a thank-you for your patronage
just as you are leaving, I give you here another story in thanks for hav-
ing listened to my cuento (433; emphasis in the original).
3. As noted in the Introduction, the 1980s provided a productive sce-
nario for feminists of color, like Chicanas, in multiple associations that
boosted collaborative networks of information exchange, fostering
a deeper understanding of one anothers unique locations. Only by

NOTES 197
crossing bridges and a tolerance for contradictions was this possible,

as exemplified by the texts and testimonies in This Bridge.
4. Emphasizing Cisneross interest in ethnography and ethnographi-
cal discourse, Sald var defines Esperanza and Celaya using the
term anthropoeta in this way: I have borrowed the neologism
anthropoeta from my conversations with Renato Rosaldo and Ruth
Behar, ethnographers who are also published poets and blur generic
boundaries in their experimental ethnographies. (Saldvar, Trans-

Americanity. Kindle Locations 33543355).
5. My elaboration on Sandra Cisneross rasquachismo is indebted to
Don Luis Leals ideas on Cisneross chaotic and accumulative enu-
merations that he presented in a seminar class on the Mexican and
Chicano short story in 2003.
6. The conceptualization of the house in Cisneross first novel has been
approached from different perspectives. Juli n Olivares, for example,
offers an analysis in connection with Gaston Bachelards poetics of
space. Olivares notes Cisneross subversion of the traditional under-
standing of the house as a felicitous domestic space, representing a
nostalgic desire for stability. However, Cisneros also plays with other
contradictory elements pointed out by Bachelard: the dialectic of
inside and outside, that is, here and there, integration and alienation,
comfort and anxiety (Olivares 161). Jacqueline Doyle highlights
Cisneross interest in exploring the complexity of class and gender
issues by introducing in Chicana letters the Woolfean feminist com-
monplace of looking for a room of ones own (13). Finally, Eduardo
El as argues for the importance of the house not only as a reclusive
space, but also as a site of resistance in the process of creating a new
Chican@ consciousness (80).
7. The room next to the kitchen is reserved for the daughter, according
to the Mexican tradition pointed out in the novel. Ironically, when the
Reyes family move to San Antonio, it is the grandmother who tempo-
rarily takes this room close to the kitchen in the house on El Dorado
Street, while Lala has to sleep in the living room. Lala will have her
own room only in the compadres house during her visits to Mexico
City, and finally in the house that her parents buy in Chicago.
8. In the analysis of Chicana literature, I define a discursive site of
intervention inspired by Emma Prezs notion of sitios y lenguas
as a zona de contacto o espacio liminal apto para mostrar la con-
fluencia no slo de variantes culturales y raciales, sino tambin de
gnero/sexo (Vivancos Prez, Secret 423).
9. The armoire also includes photographs, a handkerchief, and the
grandfathers ribs as reminders of the wounds of war, as part of both
Mexican collective historythe Revolutionand the grandparents
personal story. Comparing with Gaspar de Albas Sor Juanas Second
Dream, it is a kind of Pandoras box for the Reyes family.

198 NOTES
10. I understand metaphors as both conceptual and grounded in every-

day experience (Lakoff and Johnson 272). In other words, metaphors
have to do with discourses and lived realities, and most accurately with
the amalgamation of both. It is worth noting how George Lakoff and
Mark Johnson point out that all metaphors are structural, onto-
logical, and many are orientational (264). All three characteristics
can be seen in my study of the rebozo as metaphor.
11. The rapacejo, the part between the main cloth of the rebozo and the

tassels, became the common way of identifying the region where the
rebozo was made.
12. As the virrey and Count of Revillagigedo states in 1794: Son una
prenda de vestuario de las mujeres, lo llevan sin exceptuar ni aun
las monjas, las seoras ms principales y ricas y hasta las ms pobres
del bajo pueblo (Rivero-Borrell, Orellana and Tejada 23). Colors
and materials, more or less refined, differentiated the way of dress-
ing of Spanish, criolla, mestiza and indigenous women, servants, or
slaves.
13. The tradition of Mexican American weavers in US territories has
remained alive from generation to generation of both native and
immigrant families. In a study of three families of Hispanic weavers
in New Mexico, Helen Lucero highlights the importance of women
in the transmission and transformation of the art of weaving with
the example of the matriarch of Hispanic weaving gueda Salazar
Mart nez and her daughters (2606).
14. In Mango Street, the expansion of Cisneross poetics of space is
accompanied by the recurrent use of vignettes that may count as
independent short stories. In the short stories of Woman Hollering
Creek (1991), the character of the awful grandmother is already
present in Mericans, and Lalas references to her life as a telenovela
expand Clefilass desires in Woman Hollering Creek. Some other
vignettes in the novel are reminiscent of her poems, a fact that was
already observed in Mango Street. For instance, the poem Roosevelt
Road, written in 1977, is considered by Eduardo Elas as a clear
antecedent to the descriptions in Cisneross first novel, with evident
autobiographical undertones (79).
6 The Jurez Murders, Chicana Poetics,

and Human Rights Discourse
1. L pezs representation, based on the Coyolxauhqui stone, represents
a kind of double dismemberment of the Aztec goddess. Only some
of her body parts appear, as opposed to Celia Herrera Rodrguezs
Nepantlera, where the nepantlera is a half-re-membered Coyolxauhqui
(see Juncture ).
2. Gonz lez Rodr guez contends that, as a result of the conflicting
nature of these communicative processes, the murders have achieved

NOTES 199
cyber-event status, since the internet, new media, and social net-
works have played a relevant role in disseminating these discourses
(Gonz lez Rodr guez 83).
3. In this regard, Seorita extraviada influences Maquilapolis, a doc-
umentary about the maquilas in Tijuana which deals with women
workers and the effects of globalization. Portillos documentary
inaugurates a particular trend of narrative and poetic strategies for
documentaries on border issues.

4. El silencio que nuestras voces quiebra (1999), a collage of testimo-
nies by families of the victims published by the S Taller de Narrativa
de Ciudad Ju rez, includes Sagrarios mothers testimony about the
parakeets that Portillo filmed for her documentary. Molly Molloys
review of the book tells the story of its publicationRonquillo
allegedly plagiarized some of the contents of the book. This shows
more evidence of the manipulation of the media and the publishers
in Mexico to make profit and erase the testimonies of the families,
which highlights impunity and corruption at all levels of the Mexican
administration, including media censorship and control.
5. There is not a single allusion to the title within the novel, but the
year 2666 is mentioned in Bola os 1999 novel Amuleto where
Auxilio Lacoutures hallucination in Mexico City makes Avenida
Guerrero look like nothing more than a cemetery . . . a cemetery
from the year 2666, a cemetery forgotten under a dead or unborn
eyelid, bathed in the dispassionate fluids of an eye that, for wanting
to forget something, has ended forgetting everything (Tres novelas
210; my translation).


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Index

academe xvi, xix, 30, 84, 181 Moraga, Cherre and xv, xix,
language of 1078 2, 33, 36, 512, 568, 737,
See also antiacademicism 824, 87, 934, 107, 191n2,
academic jargon 107, 191n3 192n7
activism 20, 58, 76, 179 now let us shift 82
aesthetic 88, 120, 16580 Prez, Emma and 946, 100, 105
aesthetic education 81, 85, 111, Portillo, Lourdes and 170
140, 183 Putting Coyolxauhqui
See also Spivak Together 26, 33, 42, 48, 185
Aesthetic Education in the Era of To(o) Queer the Writer 30
Globalization. See Spivak See also Antigua, mi Diosa;
Alarcn, Norma 12, 54, 57, 136, 149 arrebato; atravesados;
Allatson, Paul 115 autohistoria-teora;
alliances 6, 24, 32, 34, 48, 76, compostura; Facultad; mestiza
878, 136, 138, 141 consciousness; nos/otros; This
allies xivxxi, 88 Bridge Called My Back; This
lvarez, Julia 187n1 Bridge We Call Home; writing
Anthony, Adelina 192n13 of convergence
anthropoeta 148, 197n4 appearance 115, 1206, 159, 170,
antiacademicism 58, 59, 10711, 114 194n3
Antigua, mi diosa 57 Appiah, Kwame A. 89, 1112, 52,
Anzalda, Gloria xv, 4, 16, 812, 188n4
845, 109, 113, 114, 135, 171 appropriation 48, 119, 185
Borderlands/La Frontera xv, Arenal, Luis 10, 189n6
xvixvii, 714, 234, 267, arrebato xv, xviiixix, 334, 89, 105
2949, 512, 74, 1614, Arendt, Hannah 181
174, 188n3 Arteaga, Alfred 1213
Castillo, Ana and 934, 96, 103, artists 12, 93, 191n7
105 as cultural translators 84
Cisneros, Sandra and 159 as seamstresses 135, 191n7
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia and 105, as shamans 30
109, 113, 174 See also intellectuals
Gloria Evangelina Anzalda atravesados xviii, xxiii, 8, 11, 13, 25,
Papers 16, 30, 356, 73, 161, 39, 40, 77, 87, 89, 99, 130, 179
189n1 See also border subjects

216 INDE X
authority 76, 1024, 145, 175, as open wound 38, 189n5

1813 See also borderization; borderlands
autobiography 30, 36, 38, 53, 55, border consciousness 19, 113, 185
63, 121, 142, 173 See also border; Gaspar de Alba
autohistoria-teora 29, 32, 35, borderization 16, 36, 40, 43
46, 127 See also border and borderlands
Avila, Eric R. 5 borderlands 11, 19, 3840, 812,
vila, Teresa de 312 122, 167

Ciudad Jurez and 1756 See also border
Aztec civilization xviii, xxiiiiv, 10, Borderlands/La Frontera. See
236, 323, 437, 578, 63, Anzalda
84, 198 Border Matters: Remapping American
Aztln 62, 69 Cultural Studies. See Saldvar
border studies 7, 30
Bachelard, Gaston 17, 151, 197n6 border subjects 11, 20, 24, 345,
Badiou, Alain 180 37, 38, 43, 73, 81, 99, 113, 122
Bard, Patrick 171 See also atravesados
Barker, Pat 84 Bowden, Charles 169, 171
Barthes, Roland 195n6, 196n5 Braidotti, Rosi 35, 17, 90, 957,
Benjamin, Jessica 149 101, 105, 158, 17980, 183
betrayal 62, 66, 84, 100, 103, 171 Anzalda and 967
Bierhorst, John 32, 62 Broyles-Gonzlez, Yolanda 567,
bildungsroman 146 701, 191n6
Black Feminist Thought. See Collins
Bly, Robert 110 California 60, 64, 67, 93, 109,
body, the xv, 538, 69, 71 189n7
appearance and 1206 Cant, Norma 143
desire and 68, 93, 192n7 capitalism 121, 167
dismembered xvii, 16, 26, 315, Caputi, Jane 1667
37, 62, 65, 70, 816, 93, 100, CARA, Chicano Art Resistance and
122, 167, 170, 176, 191n3, Affirmation exhibit 11820
192n12, 195n3, 198n1 cartography 5, 88, 100, 113, 183
land and 55, 57, 191n3 Castaeda, Claudia 145, 148
memory and xvii, 315, 46, 66, Castillo, Ana 4, 1718, 87106,
845, 93, 98, 100, 104, 120, 146, 187n1, 192n6, 195n7
122, 131, 135, 184, 198n1 Anzalda and 934, 96, 103, 105
methodology and 246, 58, 164 Cisneros and 108, 140, 1423,
queerness and 55 152
sexualized xvii, 12, 38, 63, 82, Gaspar de Alba and 105, 114, 175
95, 169 Massacre of the Dreamers 88,
writing and 38, 108, 128, 189n5 1078
See also desire; sexuality The Mixquiahuala Letters 17,
Bolao, Roberto 20, 1712, 1759, 87106, 144, 1523, 175
199n5 Moraga and 91, 934, 105, 1078
border, the xvxviii, xix, xxiii, 11, 20, Prez and 1718, 87106
24, 34, 81, 90, 98, 114, 16580 See also Xicanisma

INDE X 217
Chavez, Cesar 65 See also interconnectivity,

Chvez, Denise 187n1, 196n1 interconnectedness and; rebozo
Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Ciudad Jurez 1920, 122, 16580,
Historical Writings. See Garca, 195n3, 199n4
Alma class 1, 6, 9, 1112, 1415, 53, 60,
Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our 90, 95, 1079, 149, 1557,
Mothers Warned Us About. See 187n2, 191n2, 197n6
Trujillo clothing. See appearance

Chicana feminism 16, 15, 18, coalition politics. See alliances
468, 58, 67, 734, 76, 88, 89, Coatlicue 23, 323, 438, 66, 88
96, 98, 110, 115, 118, 138, Coatlicue states 334, 456
1467, 1502, 1567, 174, collective creativity 737
184, 188n2, 191n5 Collins, Patricia Hill 1415
Chicana/Latina publication colonization 93, 140, 191n3
boom 30, 88, 187n1, 196n3 compostura 1358
Chicano Art: Inside/Outside the Conner, Randy 77
Masters House. See Gaspar de conocimiento xv, xviii, 31, 335,
Alba 45, 47, 767, 84, 89, 105, 113,
Chicano Movement 6, 8, 1011, 135, 189n3
14, 18, 114, 116, 146, 182, consciousness 237, 197n6
184, 188n2 See also Coyolxauhqui
Chicano Poetics. See Arteaga consciousness; differential
Chican@ identity 812, 189n5 consciousness; mestiza
Chican@ studies xviii, xix, xxiii, 58, consciousness
14, 20, 81, 1816, 194n4 consensus 186
evolution of 1623 Corpi, Lucha 188n2
child narrators 19, 14550 corruption 199n4
Chomsky, Noam 169 Cortzar, Julio 18, 1013, 114,
choreonarratives 92 176, 195n7
choreopoems 91, 193n2 Cota-Crdenas, Margarita 187n1
Cisneros, Sandra 4, 19, 1089, Coyolxauhqui xviixviii, xxiv, 16,
13659, 187n1, 188n2, 197n4, 325, 37, 438, 61, 656, 75,
n5, n6, 198n14 814, 88, 93, 135, 159, 1658,
Anzalda and 159 190n6, 198n1
Caramelo 19, 13759, 1745 Coyolxauhqui consciousness 334,
Castillo and 108, 140, 1423, 152 43, 57, 105
Gaspar de Alba and 140, 152, Coyolxauhqui imperative 33, 36,
159, 174, 197n9 43, 47, 57, 93, 1816
The House on Mango Street 137, cuentista (storyteller) 59, 109, 131,
141, 1457, 151, 155, 198n14 142
Moraga and 1089, 158 cultural nationalism 67, 99
My Wicked, Wicked Ways 145 See also ethnonationalism;
Prez and 140, 142 postnationalism
Portillo and 170 cultural schizophrenia 19, 113,
Woman Hollering Creek and Other 185
Stories 145, 198n14 curanderas 1223, 131

218 INDE X
Cruz, Sor Juana Ins de la xixxxi, dramatic writing 5861

1819, 11331, 164, 194n1 dreams 91105, 122, 12631, 195n3
Carta Atenagrica xx dressing. See appearance
Primero Sueo 126, 130, 195n6
Respuesta a Sor Filotea xixxxi, education xviii, 14, 30, 53, 58, 63,
116, 126, 196n11 712, 81, 85, 107, 111, 124,
126, 135, 137, 140, 180, 183
dangerous beasts poetics xiiixv, See also academe

xviixviii, xxi, xxiii, 120, Elam, Harry Jr. 193n16
257, 489, 52, 58, 767, 81, Elas, Eduardo 146, 197n6, 198n14
8790, 94, 97, 100, 1035, Ellison, Ralph 181
10711, 115, 159, 162, 164, embodiment 140, 145
167, 16970, 174, 176, 180, Ensler, Eve 165
183, 185 Entwistle, Joanne 121
death 747, 84 epistemology 1634, 183
Decolonial Imaginary. See Prez essentialism. See strategic
decolonization 88, 978, 140, essentialism
191n3 ethics 20, 180, 1846
Deleuze, Gilles 17, 45, 95, 97 ethnography 1415, 90, 92,
democratization 7, 1920, 89, 111 1012, 147
desexualization 125 Ethnic studies 181
desire 17, 512, 192n7, 194n2 ethnonationalism 6, 10, 24, 56, 99,
empowerment and 89, 91 182, 184
lesbian 512, 71, 978, 114, See also cultural nationalism;
123, 128 postnationalism
nomadism and 92, 97101 exile 93, 957
detective fiction 1725 exotization 139, 169, 172, 17980,
diaspora 82, 87, 957 187n1
difference 4, 24, 48, 61, 95, 138
differential consciousness 19, 138, Facultad, la 11, 26, 402, 64, 85
150, 158 family 55, 60, 63, 153, 192n13
diosas 23, 32, 46, 578, 612, 65, fantasy xxi, 23, 65, 67, 95, 98, 100,
159, 191n6, 194n2 115, 140, 196n9
disability 30, 65 fashion. See appearance
disidentification xiv, 76, 99, 115, female masculinity 129
125, 14750, 185 femicide 1679, 172, 1757, 179
displacement 21, 25, 87, 89, 90, Femicide Machine, The. See Gonzlez
937, 142 Rodrguez
dissociation 25, 48 feminisms xiii, xix, 24, 1112,
disciplines. See interdisciplinarity; 1718, 54, 56, 66, 77, 87, 95,
transdisciplinarity 1078, 110, 114, 117, 125,
diversity 11, 114, 163 130, 136, 161, 170, 193n1
internal 12, 24, 69, 88, 110, Anglo American 11
188n3 Chicana xiii, xix, 2, 4, 1114, 54,
domesticana 150 56, 66, 77, 87, 1078, 117,
Doyle, Jacqueline 197n6 125, 130, 136, 170

INDE X 219
dangerous beasts and 4 Sor Juanas Second Dream 1819,

French 95, 110 11331, 152, 195n5, n6, n9
lesbian 114, 117, 130 See also border consciousness;
US Third World 12, 161, 193n1 cultural schizophrenia
See also This Bridge Called My Back gender xii, xixxx, xxiii, 411, 15,
fetishism 125, 129 19, 30, 45, 52, 67, 70, 82, 89,
figurations xxi, 35, 11, 13, 16, 23, 901, 989, 101, 16580, 182,
25, 27, 40, 43, 48, 52, 62, 69, 188n2, 197n6

77, 816, 90, 957, 114, 138, appearance and. See appearance
145, 184 border and 16580
Fitzcallaghan Jones, sexuality and. See sexuality
Kathleen 190n7 See also transvestism
Fornes, Mara Irene 60 gender violence 19, 901, 989,
Foucault, Michel 17, 53, 69, 71, 101, 16580
90, 99, 148, 188n4 ghosts 902, 102, 105, 142
Freud, Sigmund 100, 127, 195n7 girl narrator. See child narrators
frontertica 114 global activism 1920, 72, 1368,
Fuego, Laura del 187n1 16580
Fuentes, Carlos 139, 171, 179 globalization 1920, 1401, 143,
1745, 1812, 199n3
Galn Bentez, Carmen 171 goddesses. See diosas
Garca, Alma 56 Goldman, Francisco 176
Garca Lorca, Federico xiiixiv, xix, 67 Gmez, Marsha 32
Garca Mrquez, Gabriel 139 Gonzles, Rodolfo Corky 712
Gaspar de Alba, Alicia xix, 4, Gonzales-Berry, Erlinda 102, 1467
1820, 11331, 16580, 185 Gonzlez, Deena xviii, 15, 74, 118,
Anzalda and 105, 109, 113, 174 121
Beggar on the Cordoba Gonzlez Rodrguez, Sergio 167,
Bridge 122 169, 176, 179, 198n2
Castillo and 105, 114, 175 Gramsci, Antonio 53, 55, 71
Chicano Art. Inside / Outside the Greene, Alexis 5961
Masters House 15, 11820 Grosz, Elizabeth 98
Cisneros and 140, 152, 159, Guadalupe. See Virgen de
174, 197n9 Guadalupe
Desert Blood: The Jurez guilt 116, 118, 1245
Murders 1820, 1715, 17980 Gutirrez, Ramn A. 56, 93
Giving Back the World, MA
Thesis 10910 Habermas, Jrgen 6
Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Haraway, Donna 3, 96
Trade, and La Frontera 170 Hernndez, Ellie 57, 18, 90,
Moraga and 11314, 1301, 175 97101
Our Lady of Controversy: Herrera Rodrguez, Celia 815,
Alma Lpezs Irreverent 198n1
Apparition 190n7 Herrera-Sobek, Mara 6, 187n1,
Prez and 105, 109, 114, 12931 188n2
Portillo and 170, 173 heteronormativity 124

220 INDE X
heterosexism 10, 62, 90, 99 internet 199n3

Hillman, James 237, 435, 100 Irigaray, Luce 17
homoeroticism xx, 62, 68, 118, Islas, Arturo 143
124, 127
homophobia xv, 62, 70 Jay, Paul 1401
House on Mango Street. See Cisneros Jurez. See Ciudad Jurez
Huerta, Dolores 66, 114 junctures xxiii, 85, 107, 138, 164
Huerta, Jorge A. 70, 193n15 Jung, Carl 234, 56, 100

Huitzilopochtli 57
human rights 1920, 57, 16580 Kahlo, Frida 114, 119
literary forms and 171 Keating, Analouise 30, 45, 48, 82,
Hungry Woman, the 57, 613, 136, 193n1
66, 69 Klein, Julie Thompson 1623
Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea. Kristeva, Julia 196n10
See Moraga
hybridity 114, 139, 143 labels 188n4
Lacan, Jacques 1718, 99100,
I am Joaqun. See Gonzles, Rodolfo 1045, 193n3
Corky Lakoff, George 198n10
identification. See disidentification language 9, 18, 31, 93, 100, 115,
identity. See Chican@ identity 120, 182, 194n3
identity formation 4, 30, 31, 36, creativity and 12931, 157
121, 135, 137, 147, 150, of dangerous beasts poetics 43,
1556, 189n5 68, 712, 745, 93, 1078, 185
identity politics 19, 157 ideology and 38, 99, 1078, 168,
Ikas, Karin R. 193n14 185
imaginary 17, 171, 1734, 179 Lara, Irene 34
immigration xix, 957, 139, 153, 185 Lasso de la Vega, Luis 191n6
imperialism 140 Last Generation, The. See Moraga
inclusiveness xv, 7, 73, 163 latinidades 9
indigenism 43, 45, 556, 76, 82, 113 Latina feminisms. See Chicana
INTAR Theater 60 feminism
intellectuals 30, 48, 53, 58, 63, 66, Lauretis, Teresa de 3, 967, 128,
69, 712, 113, 181, 185 195n9
See also artists leadership. See intellectuals
Inter-American Commission on Leal, Luis xx, 197n5
Human Rights 169 lesbianism 31, 38, 43, 512, 54,
interconnectivity 19, 105, 135, 141, 71, 978, 113, 194n2
150, 1559, 168, 174, 183 Lezama Lima, Jos 176
interconnectedness and 1558 LGTBQ communities 87
intercultural communication 1401, Llorona, la 32, 57, 66
153, 158 Lomel, Francisco A. 6, 14, 145,
See also interconnectivity 187n1
interdisciplinarity 7, 1614, 188n3 Lpez, Alma 467, 114, 1646,
See also transdisciplinarity 190n1, 198n1
internal colonization 93 Lpez, Yolanda 32, 46

INDE X 221
Lorde, Audre 84 metapoetics 1617, 2931, 35, 43,

love 72, 77, 101, 105, 195n6 48, 58, 93, 176
Lucero, Helen 198n13 metatheatrical performance 649
Lunsford, Andrea 135 methodology xiii, xv, 1415, 234,
Lyotard, Franois 148 26, 29, 35, 43, 489, 72, 87,
110, 113, 118, 131, 138, 158,
MacFarland, CA 656 1614, 169, 1834, 192n10
machismo xv, 10, 33, 131 Methodology of the Oppressed. See

Malinche, La 32, 61, 66, 84, 114, Sandoval
171 Mexican Revolution 142, 151, 154,
maquiladoras 1656, 1709, 199n3 156, 197n9
Mark of the Beast 2, 812, 1612, Mexico 142, 1557, 165
170, 172 Colonial 11519, 1256
Mrquez, Teresa 6 Mexico City 84, 142, 154, 158
marriage 124, 126, 129 migration. See immigration and
Martn-Rodrguez, Manuel 312, diaspora
139, 146, 153 minding appearances 121
masculinity 90, 125 Mohr, Nicolasa 187n1
See also female masculinity; Molloy, Molly 199n4
machismo Monrrez Fragoso, Julia 168, 1768
McCracken, Ellen 139, 187n1 monstrosity xiv, xvii, xxxxi, 1, 46,
Medea 613, 66, 67, 72, 61, 90, 119, 1245, 159, 172
192n11, n13 Monteflores, Carmen de 187n1
mediation. See participant-observers; Mora, Pat 81, 187n1, 188n2
outside-insiders Moraga, Cherre L. 4, 1617
Medusa 39, 40, 435, 81 Anzalda and xv, xix, 2, 33, 36,
memory 35, 92, 1301, 139, 153 512, 568, 737, 824, 87,
appearance and 194n3 934, 107, 191n2, 192n7
desire and 93, 97101 Castillo and 91, 934, 105, 1078
as history 97, 104, 140 Cisneros and 1089, 158
photographs and 1435 Gaspar de Alba and 11314,
traveling and 92 1301, 175
Mena, Mara Cristina 156 Giving Up the Ghost 55, 589,
Mndez, Miguel 152 62, 91, 130, 146
Mndez-Negrete, Josie 196n1 Heroes and Saints 5961, 6472,
Mesa-Bains, Amalia 150 11314, 158, 192n8
mestizaje 32, 1556, 170 The Hungry Woman 57, 59,
mestiza consciousness 11, 23, 27, 613, 66, 93, 192n11
33, 36, 45, 136, 194n2 The Last Generation 55, 191n3
metaphors 8, 11, 19, 234, 314, Loving in the War Years 36,
35, 38, 456, 49, 52, 54, 568, 534, 589, 108, 191n4,
66, 70, 72, 756, 81, 89, 100, 193n14
109, 115, 11920, 1358, 146, Prez and 91, 100, 105, 130
14950, 1539, 168, 174, 176, Waiting in the Wings 55, 63
183, 185, 189n5, 192n8, n12, Watsonville: Some Place Not
198n10 Here 5961

222 INDE X
Moraga, Cherre L.Continued outside-insiders xviixxi, 1416, 74,

A Xicana Codex of Changing 89, 111, 118, 1816
Consciousness 737, 815, 94
See also theory in the flesh; Pandora 125, 127, 195n4, 197n9
This Bridge Called My Back; participant-observers 1415, 102,
visionary characters 118, 138, 147
multidisciplinarity. See Paz, Octavio 11318, 195n5, n6,
interdisciplinarity; n7, n8

transdisciplinarity Prez, Emma
Mulvey, Laura 125, 195n4 Anzalda and 946, 100, 105
Muoz, Carlos 163 Castillo and 1718, 87106
Murray, Ixta Maya 196n1 Cisneros and 140, 142
mysticism 312, 189n3 The Decolonial Imaginary 88,
myth-making 237, 438, 56, 978, 140
701, 114, 118 Gaspar de Alba and 105, 109,
mythopoetic selves 17, 26, 567, 114, 12931
63, 69 Gulf Dreams 87106, 10910,
12931
NAFTA, North American Free Moraga and 91, 100, 105, 130
Agreement 167, 174 See also sitios y lenguas
narcotrafficking 1678, 173 performativity xv, 29, 45, 47, 89,
Nathan, Debbie 170 100, 114, 193n16, 195n9
nation 55, 153, 192n3 pesticides 601, 645
See also postnationalism; piln 143, 196n2
transnationalism Pineda, Cecile 187n1
nepantla 15, 334, 815, 89, 114, plagiarism 745, 77
142, 159 poetics. See Arteaga; dangerous
nepantlism 34, 76, 815, 198n1 beasts poetics
Nicolescu, Basarab 164 poetics of space 150, 183, 197n6,
Nietogomez, Anna 115 198n14
Nin, Anas 94 polycentricity 11, 16, 237, 33,
Nomadic Subjects. See Braidotti 43, 46, 56, 61, 63, 767,
nomadism 3, 17, 8990, 92, 937, 85, 91, 93, 100, 1034,
105, 120, 139, 142m 179 11314, 144
nos/otros xvxvi, xxi, 39, 43, 77 Ponce, Mary Helen 187n1
nos/otros scholarship xxi, 77, 184 Portillo, Lourdes 1920, 16971,
nostalgia 967, 105, 175, 182, 184, 173, 195n3
197n6 Portillo-Trambley, Estela 1819,
11516
Olivares, Julin 155, 197n6 positionality xiiixxi, 7, 1216, 19,
Oliver-Rotger, Maria Antonia 108 99, 11820, 172
oppositional consciousness 31, 43, postmodern ethnicities 187n1
48, 75, 87, 118 post-movement 5, 162
Ortega, Carlos F. 5, 162 postnationalism xxiii, 5, 162, 167
Ortiz Cofer, Judith 187n1 prostitution 1779
Other, the 159, 187n1 Puig, Manuel 176

INDE X 223
queerness 78, 13, 19, 3840, 43, Santiago, Esmeralda 187n1

512, 55, 59, 63, 69, 91, 191n3 Sant, Enrico Mario 194n1
Quetzalcatl 57, 62 Sartre, Jean Paul 188n4
Quintana, Alvina 92, 102 Sassen, Saskia 6
scopophilia 125
racism xv, 1, 2, 70 shamans 30
radical chicana poetics. See Shange, Ntozake 91, 193n2
dangerous beasts poetics self-reflection 53, 58, 71, 93, 192n13

radicalism xv, 1, 53, 55, 57, 69, 75, Seorita extraviada. See Portillo
107, 148 sexism. See machismo
Ramos, Juanita 38 sexuality 111, 15, 17, 26, 30,
rasquachismo 1503, 159, 197n5 389, 43, 45, 52, 60, 678, 71,
Raya, Marcos 119 935, 97102, 119, 123, 128,
Rayuela. See Cortzar 130, 137, 1623, 173, 179,
role of readers 1014 191n2, 194n2, 195n9
Real, the 99100, 105, 193n3 desire and 97101, 11317,
Rebolledo, Tey Diana 146, 124, 126
1878n2 Silva, Beverley 188n2
rebozo 19, 150, 1539, 174, Siqueiros, David Alfaro 189n6
198n10, n11, n12 sitios y lenguas 110, 197n8
rebozo writing 1578 Slaughter, Joseph 20
religion 11, 13, 44, 60, 68, 116, soldaderas 114
120, 126, 190n7 Sollors, Phillip 188n3
reparation 91, 93, 114, 171 Sor Juana. See Cruz
resistance 107, 197n6 Sor Juanas Second Dream. See
Rich, Adrienne 128 Gaspar de Alba
Ros, Isabella 145 Spain xviii, 193n13
rites of passage 120, 131, 185 speaking for others xiv, 1378, 1816
Rivera, Toms 110, 146 specificity 24, 8, 17, 524, 71,
ritual 64, 67, 193n6 75, 85
Rodrguez, Elena Guadalupe 188n2 spherical actor 701
role models 67, 115, 185 spiritual activism 34, 39, 75, 82, 84
Ronquillo, Vctor 169, 199n4 spirituality 30, 32, 57, 95, 100
Rosaldo, Renato xviii, 1415, 102, Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty xvii,
118, 147 140, 1834
Stevens, Wallace 110
Salazar Martnez, gueda 198n4 storytelling. See cuentista
Saldvar, Jos David 56, 139, 148, strategic essentialism 110
197n4 survival 11, 72, 170
Salinas, Marta 66
Snchez, Marta E. 76, 187n2 Tabuenca Crdoba, Mara S. 172,
Sandoval, Chela 4, 19, 138, 150, 193n16
158 Tafolla, Carmen 157
Sanmiguel, Rosario 171, 179 Teatro Campesino 17, 56, 6971,
Santamara, Francisco 149 191n6, 193n15
Santa Teresa. See vila, Teresa de Teatro de la Esperanza 192n10

224 INDE X
teatropoesa 193n2 Villanueva, Alma Luz 146, 196n1

theoretical subject 4, 7, 1214, 67, Villanueva, Tino 910
89, 125, 143, 1479, 151, 170, violence. See gender violence
187n2 Viramontes, Helena Mara 187n2
theory in the flesh 538 Virgen de Guadalupe 10, 23, 32, 46,
thesis novel 90, 115, 118 61, 667, 114, 191n6, 194n2
Third Woman Press 189n4 visionary characters 53, 614, 65,
This Bridge Called My Back 12, 4, 67, 6970

8, 16, 35, 534, 736, 87, 107, visual arts 32, 448, 816, 114,
141, 148, 163, 193n1 11820, 1657, 194n2
This Bridge We Call Home xvxvi, 141 voyeurism 125, 129
tolerance for contradictions xvi, 48, vulnerability 13, 131
77, 85, 89, 140, 149, 180, 185
Tonantzin 10, 23, 323, 46, 57, weaving 198n13
62, 191n6 as metaphor 1359, 1539
See also diosas See also compostura
Torres, Hctor 189n4 Whitechapel, Simon 171
totalizing novel 13940, 176 Wilson, August 59
traitors. See betrayal Wittig, Monique 3, 96
transborder literary criticism 172, women bonding 8990, 945, 195n3
180 women studies xix, 35, 11, 17, 181
transculturation 142 writers. See artists; intellectuals
transdisciplinarity 3, 7, 81, 1514, writing 15, 257, 30, 33, 38,
1712, 179 423, 87, 120, 12731, 1569,
translation 81, 84 189n1, n5, 190n6
transnationalism 13943, 14953, desire and 512, 68, 97101,
175 1045
transvestism xxxxi, 122 dramatic 58, 68
trauma 18, 99, 125, 154 healing and 16, 30, 345, 745,
traveling 89, 924, 989, 1023, 92, 105
1503 writing of convergence 256, 1634,
tribalism 55, 75 167, 171
Trujillo, Carla 192n3, 194n2
2666. See Bolao xenophobia xv, xviii
Xicana 556, 823, 107
Ulibarri, Sabine 146 Xicana codex 107, 185
United Farm Workers Union 645, Xicanisma 18, 1078
66, 189n7
Urioste, Donald W. 14, 146 Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne 68, 70,
103, 187n2, 191n5, 193n2
Valdez, Luis 60, 65, 6971, Ybarra, Patricia 193n13
193n15 Ybarra-Fraustro, Toms 150
Viego, Antonio 18, 99101, 1045, See also rasquachismo
193n3, 194n4
Vigil, Evangelina 188n2 Zamora, Bernice 188n2
Villa, Pancho 10, 60, 70, 142 Zapata, Emiliano 10





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10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

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10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

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10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

And to all women writers and atravesados who have felt as

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Part I Dangerous Bodies/Texts

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Part III Global Interventions

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At George Mason University, I could not have survived without

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This book is dedicated to Carmen Prez Ramrez, Mara Matilde

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Radical Chicana Poetics is about the emergence of new subject posi-

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political aspirations? Only those progressive women who share some

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We Call Home (2002) to the anthologyThis Bridge Called My

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I am a border woman. I grew up between two cultures, the Mexican

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colonized people in our own territory). I have been straddling that

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Many Chican@s and border writers have followed Anzaldas

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sense, as well (Spivak, Postcolonial 108; emphasis in the original).

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perspective into my multiple experiences of transition into democ-

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could call discursive transvestism. A crucial episode in Sor Juanas life

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sexual and cultural identity that is present in the cultural production

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Chicana poetics. In this sense, these miniessays resemble the orna-

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10.1057/9781137343581 - Radical Chicana Poetics, Ricardo F. Vivancos Prez

Fearing the Dangerous Beasts:

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