Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Saddling La Gringa: Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers

Saddling La Gringa: Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers

Kafka, Phillipa

Hardcover

Series: Contributions in Women's Studies, Book 183

Literary Criticism

ISBN10: 0313311226
ISBN13: 9780313311222
Publisher: Praeger
Published: Sep 30 2000
Pages: 192
Weight: 1.08
Height: 0.77 Width: 6.38 Depth: 9.54
Language: English

Because of their ethnic identity, Latinas sometimes face discrimination in the United States. Latinas are additionally oppressed because of their gender--because they are women, they hold a subordinate position in patriarchal Latino culture. The oppression of Latinas is maintained through various cultural mechanisms, which sustain power relations based on gender. This book gives special attention to the role of female cultural gatekeepers in novels by contemporary Latina writers.

These gatekeepers enforce and perpetuate patriarchal cultural constraints onto future generations of Latinas. They construct and police female identity, including their own, through the use of idiomatic expressions, epithets, jokes, morality tales, and myths. The volume begins by examining Judith Ortiz Cofer's Silent Dancing, a work that clearly illustrates the role of gatekeepers in perpetuating gendered power relations. It then turns to the writings of Christina García, Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Magali Garcia Ramis. Through their highly critical yet loving characterizations of female gatekeepers, these Latina writers suggest a different way of life for Latinas, a feminist way.

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