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The border and border-crossing and its significance for the Chicana in a cultural, social, gendered, and spiritual sense are at the core of this book. The three oeuvres selected-Helena Viramontes' The Moths and Other Stories, Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters, and Norma Cantú's Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera-are eloquent examples of feminist Chicana writers who refuse to allow their lives to be restricted by the gender, social, racial, and cultural border and who portray how Chicana women rebel against the unfair treatment they receive from their fathers, husbands and lovers. Crossing and deconstructing the man-made borders means to leave behind the known territory and discover an unknown land, in the hope of finding a new world in which Chicana women have the same rights as white women and in which they can realize their self, develop a new mestiza consciousness and liberate themselves from patriarchal constraints and religious beliefs. The author shows how the newly won self-confidence empowers the Chicana to explore the opportunities this freedom offers.
List of contents
Background to Chicano/a Literature - Border Theories and Realities - Border-Crossing in Chicana Writing - Mestizas Breaking Taboos: Crossing Gender, Social and Religious Borders in Helena Viramontes' The Moths and Other Stories (1985) - Mestiza Liberation through Transgression: Crossing Gender Borders in Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters (1986) - Growing up Mestiza: Crossing Physical, Cultural, and Spiritual Borders in Norma Cantú's Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (1995)
About the author
Debora Holler holds an MA in Translation Studies and a PhD in (US-) American Studies from the Department of Translation, Linguistics, and Cultural Studies in Germersheim, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz; she also earned an MA in Spanish and English from the University of Alicante. Her main areas of interest include the English and Spanish languages and cultures.
