From Borderlands to Border Islands: Intersections between Anzaldúa's Chicana Feminist Theory and U.s. Latina Literature from the Hispanic Caribbean

Author

Cristina Gonzalez Martin, Illinois State UniversityFollow

Date of Award

7-1-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

First Advisor

Kimberly Nance

Abstract

This thesis studies three texts by three U.S. Latina authors from the Hispanic Caribbean through the lens of Chicana feminist border theory. The works analyzed are How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) by Dominican author Julia Alvarez, Dreaming in Cuban (1992) by Cuban-American novelist Cristina García, and the memoir Almost a Woman (1998) by Puerto Rican author Esmeralda Santiago. The theoretical framework used is Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. The objective is to show how these texts manifest the formation of a hybrid, diasporic, in-between identity that corresponds with Anzaldúa’s definition of mestiza consciousness or la conciencia mestiza, despite the different geographical, political and social contexts to which they refer. This thesis also explores the ways in which Alvarez, García and Santiago shed new light to this borderlands identity in ways Anzaldúa’s canonical text does not.

Comments

Imported from ProQuest GonzalezMartin_ilstu_0092N_11285.pdf

Recommended Citation

Gonzalez Martin, Cristina, "From Borderlands to Border Islands: Intersections between Anzaldúa's Chicana Feminist Theory and U.s. Latina Literature from the Hispanic Caribbean" (2018). Theses and Dissertations. 915.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/915

DOI

http://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2018.GonzalezMartin.C

Page Count

107