Teaching Late-Twentieth-Century Mexicana and Chicana Writers
- Editor: Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez
- Pages: 356
- Published: 2020
- ISBN: 9781603295093 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603295086 (Hardcover)
“A treasure trove of approaches to teaching Mexicana and Chicana writers. . . . This collection of essays adds pedagogical strategies to any professor’s tool kit.”
—Norma E. Cantú, Trinity University
Mexicana and Chicana authors from the late 1970s to the turn of the century helped overturn the patriarchal literary culture and mores of their time. This landmark volume acquaints readers with the provocative, at times defiant, yet subtle discourses of this important generation of writers and explains the influences and historical contexts that shaped their work.
Until now, little criticism has been published about these important works. Addressing this oversight, Teaching Late-Twentieth-Century Mexicana and Chicana Writers starts with essays on Mexicana and Chicana authors. It then features essays on specific teaching strategies suitable for literature surveys and courses in cultural studies, Latino studies, interdisciplinary and comparative studies, humanities, and general education that aim to explore the intersectionalities represented in these works. Experienced teachers offer guidance on using these works to introduce students to border studies, transnational studies, sexuality studies, disability studies, contemporary Mexican history and Latino history in the United States, the history of social movements, and concepts of race and gender.
Introduction: Literary Precursors, Influences, Innovations, and Criticism (1)
Part I: Mexicana Writers and Their Precursors
Teaching Cartucho and Nellie Campobello’s Goal of Restoring Pancho Villa to Mexican History (39)
Sor Juana’s Legacy and Rosario Castellanos’s Feminist Essays (51)
Testimony and Chronicle in Elena Poniatowska’s Las mil y una . . . La herida de Paulina (60)
Teaching Contemporary Mexico to General Education Students through Elena Poniatowska’s Stories (69)
Illness and Disability: From Narrative Prosthesis to Life Experience in Works by María Luisa Puga (77)
Small Acts of Resistance: The New Woman Confronts Social Conventions in the Narratives of Silvia Molina (86)
Symbols, Codes, and Points of Focus in Silvia Molina’s “Mentira piadosa” (95)
Narrative Spaces, Gender, and Sephardic Identity in Rosa Nissán’s Novia que te vea (104)
The Reader and the Text in Carmen Boullosa’s Fragmented Narratives (112)
Navigating Unanswerable Questions in Carmen Boullosa’s “So Disappear” (120)
Part II: Chicana Writers and Their Precursors
Jovita González and “Her People’s History”: Teaching Borderlands Culture through Close Reading and Archival Practice (131)
Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Chicana Writing and the Impact of the Mexican Revolution: Josefina Niggli’s Step Down, Elder Brother (140)
Crossing the (Genre) Border: Sandra Cisneros’s Genre Innovation in The House on Mango Street (149)
Navigating Narrative Ambiguity in Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters (158)
The Holy and the Ordinary: Lessons on Life, Love, and Language in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel (166)
Deconstructing Mexican Masculinity in Denise Chávez’s Loving Pedro Infante (174)
Norma Elia Cantú’s Canícula and Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands / La frontera in a Multiethnic Literature Classroom (183)
The Personal and the Historical in Lucha Corpi’s Detective Novels (191)
Feminist Consciousness and Community Activism in Novels by Ana Castillo and Demetria Martínez (200)
Domestication and Resistance in the Short Fiction of Alma Luz Villanueva and Helena María Viramontes (208)
Lesson Plans for Four Stories in Sandra Cisneros’s “Woman Hollering Creek” and Other Stories (216)
Part III: Comparative Notions
Bridging the Border: Guiding a Comparative Study of Nellie Campobello’s Cartucho and Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street (227)
Borderlands, Race, and Gender in Novels by Helena María Viramontes and Rosario Castellanos (236)
Brianda Domecq’s Novel La Santa de Cabora and a Southwest Chautauqua about the Curandera Teresa Urrea: A Personal Narrative (244)
Weight, Writing, and Privilege: Carmen Boullosa, Elena Poniatowska, and Rosario Castellanos (254)
Part IV: Visual and Digital Strategies
Life Writing, Biopics, Gender, and Media: Elena Poniatowska’s Tinísima and Leonora (265)
Visual Teaching Strategies and La Malinche as a Cultural Icon (274)
Teaching Queer Chicana Writers through Historical Research, Blogs, and Podcasts (282)
Developing Cross-Cultural Awareness and Digital Literacy through an Active Learning Project (291)
Part V: Drama and Performance
Reading, Witnessing, and Staging Virginia Grise and Irma Mayorga’s The Panza Monologues (301)
Evolution of a Transnational Imaginary in the Drama of Josefina Niggli, Josefina López, and Yareli Arizmendi (310)
Confronting Gender and Sexual Identity in Cherríe Moraga’s Shadow of a Man (319)
Mapping and Performing Indigenous Mexicana Identities: Violeta Luna and the Woman of Maize (327)
Notes on Contributors (337)
“This is an exciting, useful, and much-needed volume on contemporary Mexicana and Chicana authors.”
—Gloria E. Chacón
University of California, San Diego
