Writing Maya Women: Representations of Gender in Contemporary Yucatec Maya Literatures

Examining samples of written Yucatec Maya literature from the 1980s to the present, this dissertation argues that female authors reconfigure local genres in order to empower Indigenous women in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. Situating primary sources within the region’s historical, cultural, and literary milieu, it highlights how women’s writing asserts authority by invoking the truth-claims of the literary genres sujuy t’aan (sacred speech), historia (history/legend), and ejemplo (didactic tale). By juxtaposing female works against similar male-authored texts, it reveals how women undermine these genres’ patriarchal tenets as they rewrite local history and redefine the terms through which members of the Yucatec Maya community express their shared identity. The first chapter situates the Yucatec Maya People in relation to contemporary Indigenous activism and theoretically frames my study in critical Indigenous studies and Indigenous feminisms. The subsequent three chapters pair male-authored and female-authored texts that channel similar genres, historical moments, and approaches to Yucatec Maya identity. Chapter 2 contrasts the poetry of Briceida Cuevas Cob with that of Wildernain Villegas to highlight how her relocation of ritual sujuy t’aan into the space of the home enables women to integrate themselves fully into a ch’i’ibal (lineage) with roots in the pre-Columbian past. Chapter 3 reads Ana Patricia Martínez Huchim’s book U k’a’ajsajil u ts’u’ noj k’áax/Recuerdos del corazón de la montaña against typical foundational narratives represented by an illustrated memoir by Tiburcio Tzakum Cab; it demonstrates how Martínez Huchim restores marginalized women to the early twentieth-century historias (histories/legends) through which Yucatec Maya People today imagine their kaaj (community). Chapter 4 then examines short stories by Sol Ceh Moo and Vicente Canché Móo to indicate how Ceh Moo revises the ejemplo (didactic narrative) in order to provoke an interrogation of “traditions” that saddle women with the burden of Yucatec Maya representation in an era of globalization. Finally, the work concludes by exploring the potential for women to imagine alternative Yucatec Maya futures through imported artistic forms, specifically hip-hop music. As a whole, this dissertation reveals how female artists’ direct confrontations with internal patriarchies advance a Yucatec Maya decolonial project.Doctor of Philosoph