| Description |
This thesis focuses on issues of Latina identity in U.S.-Latino literature and my personal experience as a woman of Latin American descent. Specifically, the thesis uses Gloria Anzaldúa's groundbreaking work, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza to define and contextualize the Latina feminism issues of identity, belonging, and the fractured self. While Anzaldúa's "new mestiza" contextualizes the Latina's identity through the experiences of Mexican, Chicana, and Indigenous lenses, this thesis argues the themes of the Borderlands that Anzaldúa discusses are present and inherent to the Latina identity, regardless of a Latina's cultural ties to Latin America. I will be presenting my argument in three sections. The first will focus on the character Regina from Ana Castillo's The Guardians and her identity as an immigrant woman from Mexico. The second will focus on Sandra Cisneros' experiences and identity growing up in Chicago, and how her issues of identity come through in Esperanza Cordero in Cisneros' book The House on Mango Street. Finally, I'll be discussing my own identity issues and how someone like me without close cultural ties to Latin America fits into Anzaldúa's "new mestiza". |
