eBook

Troubling Nationhood in U.S. Latina Literature

Socolovsky, Maya

2013,2019

Overview

This book examines the ways in which recent U.S. Latina literature challenges popular definitions of nationhood and national identity. It explores a group of feminist texts that are representative of the U.S. Latina literary boom of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, when an emerging group of writers gained prominence in mainstream and academic circles. Through close readings of select contemporary Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American works, Maya Socolovsky argues that these narratives are \"remapping\" the United States so that it is fully integrated within a larger, hemispheric Americas.Looking at such concerns as nation, place, trauma, and storytelling, writers Denise Chavez, Sandra Cisneros, Esmeralda Santiago, Ana Castillo, Himilce Novas, and Judith Ortiz Cofer challenge popular views of Latino cultural \"unbelonging\" and make strong cases for the legitimate presence of Latinas/os within the United States. In this way, they also counter much of today's anti-immigration rhetoric.Imagining the U.S. as part of a broader \"Americas,\" these writings trouble imperialist notions of nationhood, in which political borders and a long history of intervention and colonization beyond those borders have come to shape and determine the dominant culture's writing and the defining of all Latinos as \"other\" to the nation.

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Subject: American / american culture / american history / American literature / American Studies / Ana Castillo / Belonging (Social psychology) / cuba / cuban american / Denise Chavez / Esmeralda Santiago / feminism / feminist / feminist interest / Himilce Novas / Hispanic American / Hispanic American authors / Hispanic American women / Hispanic Americans in literature / History and criticism / Identity (Psychology) in literature / imperialism / imperialist / Intellectual life / Judith Ortiz Cofer / Language & Literature / Latina Literature / latina studies / latinao studies / latino studies / lit crit / LITERARY CRITICISM / LITERARY CRITICISM / General / literary studies / Literature / Mexican American / Mexico / National characteristics, Latin American, in literature / national identity / nationhood / non fiction / nonfiction / puerto rico / rutgers / rutgers university / rutgers university press / Sandra Cisneros / The American Literature Initiative / u.s. history / U.s. latina literature / unbelonging / us history / Women authors
• ISBN: 9780813561196, 0813561191, 9780813561189, 0813561183