Chicana Generations (1)

Reading Assignment: Your reply (under Comments) is due before class on Wednesday, February 15. Remember, you don’t need to answer all or even any of the questions, but your response should demonstrate you’ve done and thought about the readings. Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.

  • Lorna Dee Cervantes, “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway”
  • Angie Chabram Dernersesian “And, Yes…The Earth Did Part: On Splitting Chicana/o Subjectivity” (from Building With Our Hands, 34-56)
  • Bernice Zamora, “Notes From a Chicana Coed” (from Making Face, Making Soul)

Reading both Cervantes and Dernersesian, how do you see the images of generations in Chicana feminism?  What can each woman in Cervantes’ poem represent?  What do you associate with the poetic images of freeways and their shadows?  Do you agree with Dernersesian’s thesis that Chicana poetry / art constructs and positions multiple Chicana identities? According to Dernersesian, how do these identities relate to Rendón’s machismo / malinchismo dichotomy?

How does Zamora’s “Notes From a Chicana Coed” read along side Cervantes’s “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway”?

Reading from Dernersesian’s article, how would you say Aztlán is split in Cervantes’ poem? How in Zamora’s?