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Chicana/Latina Studies volume 21 number 2 (Spring 2022)
Author: Suzy González Title: ARTIST STATEMENT: Maíz Memory: Decolonizing Art through Mestizx Media Abstract: none available Pages: 12 - 16 click to view article
Author: Sonya M Alemán Title: EDITOR’S COMMENTARY: Itzpapalotl: The Life-giving and Knowledge-producing Spirit of Chicana/Latina Studies Abstract: none available Pages: 20 - 27 click to view article
Author: Meagan Solomon Title: Homointimate Friendship and Queer Possibility in Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters Abstract: Employing queer, decolonial, and asexual frameworks, this paper offers the language of homointimacy and homointimate friendship to read the platonic, yet deeply queer, relationship between Teresa and Alicia in Ana Castillo’s The Mixquiahuala Letters. While relationships with men are evident throughout the novel and often serve as subjects of the women’s correspondence, I challenge the heteronormative gaze that governs most readings of the novel by illuminating Teresa and Alicia’s homointimate bond and its disruption of the colonially constructed platonic/romantic binary. Revealing how the queer decolonial narrative structure of the novel aids in interpreting Teresa and Alicia’s queer relationship, this article invokes a decolonial imaginary attuned to queer asexual life to assert new ways of seeing and knowing “queer” beyond sex and sexual attraction. While most scholarship on queer Chicanx identity and relationships centralizes the subversive nature of queer sexualities against the demands of compulsory heterosexuality, this article seeks to elevate the equally liberatory and transgressive nature of homointimate friendship which equips us to better understand “queer” as an expansive, radical mode of relating often inclusive of, but not inherently dependent on, sex and sexual attraction. Pages: 30 - 57 click to view article
Author: Alexandrea Pérez Allison Title: Archival Movidas in the Classroom: Teaching from the Clotilde P. García Papers Abstract: In this essay, I explore the pedagogical benefits to teaching Chicana primary documents in the classroom by focusing on material from the Clotilde P. García archive. Centering on a letter written to García by a college-aged Chicana, Gloria Ann Blanco, asking for recommendation letter, I unpack a few different interpretative lenses by which to teach and discuss this primary text, including new historicism, feminist theory, and formalist analysis. In doings so, I consider how these different epistemological vantages can lead students to engage more deeply with texts; draw connections to their lived experiences that lead to a sense of empowerment and even healing; and bend the divide between teaching content and skills that often exists within the humanities and other disciplines of higher education. Engaging with García as a historical figure, I unpack her ambiguous activism and examine her role as a women’s organizer through Espinoza, Cotera, and Blackwell’s notion of Chicana “movidas,” and how this perspective can help students dialogue about complicated historical actors with more nuance. Then, taking Margaretta Jolly’s ideas about the second-wave feminist epistolary genre, I read Blanco’s urgent and vulnerable request as an example of a feminist “articulation of needs” and how this epistolary exchange fits within a feminist “ethics of care.” Finally, I close read Blanco’s correspondence to examine how her rhetorical choices appeal to a Chicana feminist ethos, and whether or not her “Movement” rhetoric is appropriate to her audience, that is, a seemingly more conservative Mexican American woman. By demonstrating how a single archival text can suit several different critical methodologies, I contend that primary documents are essential in the Humanities—and specifically the English—classroom, because they allow for empowering connections to lived experiences and greater integration between content and skills. Consequently, I see the work of Chicana/o/x and Latina/o/x digital humanities initiatives as vital to this goal in providing equitable archival access across institutions. Pages: 58 - 86 click to view article
Author: Shelli Lynn Rottschafer Title: Querencia and Ethnobotany in Fajardo-Anstine’s “Remedies” Abstract: In her collection Sabrina & Corina (2019), Chicana-Amerindian feminist author Kali Fajardo-Anstine captures the vernacular landscape of the American Southwest and how it shapes the Chicano/a/x experience. Specifically, Fajardo-Anstine’s short story, “Remedies” binds the concept of querencia into her narrative in a way which resonates with the Chicana-Amerindian experience. Importantly Fajardo-Anstine’s female characters in this narrative demonstrate the power of reclaiming traditions and generational knowledge. Through them, Fajardo-Anstine shows how curanderismo as a cultural practice creates a space to re-member traditions and culturally ground people into these traditions through a transformative process that acknowledges past knowledges, present experiences, and future hopes. Pages: 88 - 108 click to view article
Author: Odilka Santiago Title: Homeless Shelters: Reproducing Ethno-racial Divisions Among Black and Brown Women Abstract: Today’s homeless crisis is the largest since the Great Depression. It is increasingly a problem for Black and Brown families as they are the fastest-growing population going into shelters. Between 2017 and 2020, over 60,000 people slept in New York City municipal shelters per night. African Americans and Hispanics/Latina/o/x make up ninety percent of the sheltered-homeless population, and two-thirds are families. New York City is legally mandated to house anyone found legitimately homeless. Drawing from an ethnographic study, this paper will analyze the current and historical experiences of working-poor women within the framework of welfare racism. Historical and ethnographic research findings show that shelters (as part of the welfare system) reproduce ethno-racialized and gendered subordination at the structural and interpersonal levels. As a site of potential help, the shelter system reifies ethno-racial hierarchies among marginalized women through 1) procedures that shuffle people through spaces, appointments and meetings without the guarantee of permanent housing; 2) policing sexual activity; and 3) reproducing colorism and humiliating stereotypes that justify punitive treatment from welfare services. These processes distract homeless women from coalition-building for permanent housing conditions and, instead, pit them against each other in competition for resources. Pages: 110 - 139 click to view article
Author: Rosita Scerbo Title: Ciber Arte e Intervenciones Autobiofráficas de Mujeres Latinas en las Humanidades Digitales Abstract: La autobiografía, como medio de expresión y reivindicación del yo, ofrece a las autoras/artistas femeninas chicanas la oportunidad de definirse a sí mismas. El género autobiográfico tiene orígenes muy antiguos y resulta fundamental en el proceso de construcción de la identidad por parte de mujeres pertenecientes a grupos étnicos minoritarios. El discurso autobiográfico permite a la mujer ser al mismo tiempo escultura y escultor, creador y creación. El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer una nueva aproximación al universo femenino de la Auto-representación visual en las humanidades digitales. El apropiarse de símbolos mitológicos y culturales y hacerlos parte activa y constante de sus producciones artísticas, es una actitud muy común entre la narrativa y el arte chicana. En el caso de las mujeres chicanas, una imagen emblemática que está siempre presente es la de la Virgen de Guadalupe. Muchas artistas, como las dos mexicoamericanas analizadas aquí, respectivamente María Teresa García Pedroche y Alma López, retoman esta figura religiosa y la hacen parte de sus propios cuerpos, identidades, imágenes familiares y expresiones autobiográficas visuales para rebelarse contra los imaginarios establecidos. Se verá cómo estas artistas chicanas se identifican con este ícono porque representa un desafío a las formas e imágenes patriarcales en la religión. Pages: 140 - 167 click to view article
Author: Grisel Y Acosta Title: EDITOR’S COMMENTARY: Looking to the Land: Environmental Writing Abstract: none available Pages: 170 - 171 click to view article
Author: Cristal Briseida Almonte Title: Un mar de lagrimas Respira profundo Oscuridad Abstract: none available Pages: 172 - 174 click to view article
Author: Ester Gonzalez Barrientos (Orellana) Title: Huentellao A la hora de recordarte voy a ti Montaña Abstract: none available Pages: 176 - 178 click to view article
Author: María Fernanda Title: What was the experience of death like for you? 100-word love story (1) 100-word love story (2) Abstract: three poems. Pages: 180 - 182 click to view article
Author: Carolina Hinojosa Title: Queen Nopal Abstract: none available Pages: 184 - 188 click to view article
Author: Lydia A Saravia Title: Lo que la memoria recuerda: A Journey in Sewing Abstract: none available Pages: 191 - 195 click to view article
Author: Joanna Beltrán Girón Title: Knots Abstract: Grounded in a land-based and healing-centered approach to scholarship, this creative article showcases how a state violence scholar and survivor grapples with the pain and secondary trauma that occurs when conducting interviews with people who have also been directly impacted by state violence. Namely, the author offers radically vulnerable reflections about her process in the witnessing and writing about the violence that is enacted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This essay is bilingual, multi-media and combines poetry, (meta)physics, ancestral wisdom, and autoethnography to contextualize pain, trauma, and the healing process from state violence and experiences of collective wounding. Pages: 196 - 215 click to view article
Author: Daisy Robles Herrera Title: IN REVIEW: Contesting the Historiography of the Chicano Movement with Marginalized Movidas Abstract: Chicana Movidas : New Narratives of Activism and Feminism in the Movement Era. By editors Dionne Espinoza, María Eugenia Cotera, and Maylei Blackwell. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. 467. $35.00 (paper). Pages: 218 - 220 click to view article
Author: Kathleen E Padilla Title: Intersectionality and Criminal Justice Experiences Abstract: Latinas in the Criminal Justice System: Victims, Targets, and Offenders. Edited by Vera Lopez and Lisa Pasko. New York: NYU Press, 2021. Pp. 369. $35.00 (paperback). Pages: 222 - 225

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