How the text of Spanish and Indian miscegenation and the story of Aztlan propagate identity is demonstrated in texts from Bernal Diaz del Castillo to Gloria Anzaldua. The international space and the interlingual language of the borderlands are read as factors of nationalism and postcoloniality in discussion ranging from cowboy lingo to the essential Mexicanism of Octavio Paz.

"José Limón is one of our most interesting and important commentators on Chicano culture. . . . [This book] will help strengthen an important style of historically and politically accountable cultural analysis."—Michael M. J. Fischer, co-author of Debating Muslims: Cultural Dialogues in Postmodernity and Tradition

Alurista. Gary Soto. Bernice Zamora. José Montoya. These names, luminous to some, remain unknown to those who have not yet discovered the rich variety of late twentieth century Chicano poetry. With the flowering of the Chicano Movement in the mid-1960s came not only increased political awareness for many Mexican Americans but also a body of fine creative writing. Now the major voices of Chicano literature have begun to reach the wider audience they deserve. Bruce-Novoa's Chicano Poetry: A Response to Chaos—the first booklength critical study of Chicano poetry—examines the most significant works of a body of literature that has grown dramatically in size and importance in less than two decades. Here are insightful new readings of the major writings of Abelardo Delgado, Sergio Elizondo, Rodolfo Gonzales, Miguel Méndez, J. L. Navarro, Raúl Salinas, Ricardo Sánchez, and Tino Villanueva, as well as Alurista, Soto, Zamora, and Montoya. Close textual analyses of such important works as I Am Joaquín, Restless Serpents, and Floricanto en Aztlán enrich and deepen our understanding of their imagery, themes, structure, and meaning. Bruce-Novoa argues that Chicano poetry responds to the threat of loss, whether of hero, barrio, family, or tradition. Thus José Montoya elegizes a dead Pachuco in "El Louie," and Raúl Salinas laments the disappearance of a barrio in "A Trip through the Mind Jail." But this elegy at the heart of Chicano poetry is both lament and celebration, for it expresses the group's continuing vitality and strength. Common to twentieth-century poetry is the preoccupation with time, death, and alienation, and the work of Chicano poets—sometimes seen as outside the traditions of world literature—shares these concerns. Bruce-Novoa brilliantly defines both the unique and the universal in Chicano poetry.

Studies the central concerns addressed by recent Chicano poetry.

In this first book-length study of the works of Chicano women writers, Marta Ester Sanchez introduces the reader to a group of Chicanas who in the 1970s began to reexamine and reevaluate their gender and cultural identity through poetic language. The term 'Chicana' refers here to women of Mexican heritage who live and write in the United States. The works of four contemporary Chicana poets---Alma Villanueva, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Lucha Corpi, and Bernice Zamora---are the focus of this volume. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1986. In this first book-length study of the works of Chicano women writers, Marta Ester Sanchez introduces the reader to a group of Chicanas who in the 1970s began to reexamine and reevaluate their gender and cultural identity through poetic language. The term

Offering a transdisciplinary analysis of works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Emma Pérez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Sandra Cisneros, this book explores how radical Chicanas deal with tensions that arise from their focus on the body, desire, and writing.

Offering a transdisciplinary analysis of works by Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Ana Castillo, Emma Pérez, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Sandra Cisneros, this book explores how radical Chicanas deal with tensions that arise from their focus on the body, desire, and writing.