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30 - Latina writers and the usable past

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

By
Kimberly O'Neill
Edited by
Dale M. Bauer
Kimberly O'Neill
Affiliation:
Quinnipiac University
Dale M. Bauer
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
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Summary

During her confirmation hearings in June of 2009, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor became infamous for arguing that the experiences of a “wise Latina woman” could make her a more effective judge and an important voice in the US judiciary (Sotomayor, “A Latina Judge's Voice,” 92). Sotomayor's remarks suggest how histories of migration, marginalization, and misogyny prepare Latinas to intervene in the political future of the USA. Her assertion that Latina identity has intellectual and ethical utility mirrors that of generations of Latina and Chicana artists, writers, and thinkers who have traced the historical dimensions of Latinidad. They have mined pre-Columbian mythologies, the competing imperialisms of Spain, Britain, and the USA, and centuries of turbulent hemispheric politics to understand their implications for the Latin American diaspora and especially for women.

This essay focuses on the political movements and crises that provoked dialogue among women writers of multiple national and cultural identifications, among them Mexican and Chicana, Cuban American, Puerto Rican, Salvadoran, and Dominican. Particularly in the past thirty years, these authors and poets have developed rhetorical and political practices in response to shared conflicts and in conversation with one another. That conversation comprises the literary history of Latinas and Chicanas and the usable past they have constructed.

Origins

A distinctive Chicana and Latina corpus first emerged in response to the civil rights discourses of the 1960s Chicano and Feminist Movements.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of American Women's Literature , pp. 590 - 607
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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