Retextualized transculturations: The emergence of La Malinche as figure in Chicana literature

This study consists of an interdisciplinary social and cultural reading of the numerous retextualizations of the Malinche figure in Chicana literature from 1973-1991. As Chicana feminists began to challenge their traditional, culturally sanctioned gender roles and to increase their political participation in the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 70s, they faced gender oppression within their own community as well as discrimination from the hegemonic Anglo-American culture. For some Chicanas, subverting male-prescribed cultural artefacts and recreating their myths constituted a critical step in an on-going process of self-exploration and affirmation. In part inspired by the writings of Mexican author Rosario Castellanos, but largely in reaction to the misogynistic representations of Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes, Malintzin/Malinche, widely considered mother of the mestizo people as well as traitor and whore, became a pivotal center of attention for many Chicana writers. Symbolically, she is the embodiment of the violence wrought against indigenous peoples during the Conquest, and more specifically, of the raped Indian women who bore offspring. In opposing the traditional Western view which dichotomizes women into the binary opposition of virgin or whore, Guadalupe or Malinche, Chicanas have refashioned the Malinche figure to reflect a more positive, female self-definition. This study provides an overview of the historical Malinche figure and her trajectory in Mexican history and myth (Chapter I); discusses the Chicana's contemporary social context (Chapter II); and analyzes the works of twenty Chicana authors who retextualize the Malinche myth, including those of Flor Saiz, Dorinda Moreno, Adaljiza Sosa Riddell, Delia Islas, Gloria Herrera and Jeanette Lizcano, and Adelaida R. del Castillo (Chapter III); Lucha Corpi, Carmen Tafolla, Ines Hernandez Tovar, Sylvia Alicia Gonzales, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cordelia Candelaria, and Angela de Hoyos (Chapter IV); and Lupe A. Gonzales, Norma Alarcon, Cherrie Moraga, Alma Villanueva, Margarita Cota-Cadenas, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Erlinda Gonzales-Berry (Chapter V).U of I OnlyETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permissio