Translating in the contact zone

The purpose of this article is to analyze the hybrid language used in the U.S. by a generation who think brown and write brown. I am referring to the so-called one-and-a-halfers, a generation that includes writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, Sandra Cisneros, Pat Mora, Ilan Stavans, Ana Lydia Vega, Ana Castillo, Helena Viramontes, Esmeralda Santiago, or Tato Laviera, to name but a few. I aim to analyze how many migrants and refugees use language in a way that destroys consensus. It is in these spaces where the migration movements of the multiple souths talk back in a weird language which the Establishment fears. In these circumstances, translation becomes a tool to raise questions that disturb the universal promises of monolingualism.

Sexual Difference and Women's Space in Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo

Unlike previous feminist critics who were seeking ways to reduce the otherness of the women to help them be the same as men, the subject, Luce Irigaray, strongly emphasizes the irreducibility of the women's place as the "other." Concerned with the concept of sexual difference and the otherness of women, Irigaray occupies a unique position among feminist critics. Irigaray aims not to be the "same," but to make a clear border between these two sexually different creatures. Based on sexual difference, both men and women should stand in their bordered place, and they cannot be substituted for the other. Accordingly, Irigaray seeks irreducible alterity for women in all aspects, which is the most crucial objective of this paper. Being a feminitst by spirit, Sandra Cisneros, the prize-winning chicana writer, in her novel, Caramelo (2002), dramatizes what Irigaray theorizes in her Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993). In this light, the current study analyzes Caramelo to illustrate how the "place" of the "other," that is women's "place," is occupied unfairly by the empowered men, and how female characters resist and/or succumb to the oppressive situations. The results of the study indicate that Lala, the main character, possesses the potentiality of being aware of "sexual difference" and "space," as key tools, to regain her place occupied by men, and reclaim her subjectivity, goals for which both Sandra Cisneros and Luce Irigary have aimed for years.

A Pedagogical Stylistic Study of “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros

Knowing about the linguistic and stylistic features of any literary texts in general and the aspect of lexical pattern in particular, concerning the way through which the author uses adjectives, verbs, nouns and adverbs provide us with precious information that can be helpful in judging about the appropriateness of the text to be used for a specific purpose such as teaching to EFL students in a specific level. Therefore, according to the importance of this issue, and based on the checklist of linguistic and stylistic categories proposed by Leech and Short (2000), the stylistic analysis of the short story entitled “Eleven” written by Sandra Cisneros was performed in this study from the lexical category dimension. In the end, the results and findings of the study are elaborated and discussed, with the conclusion that the author was successful in using the appropriate diction and linguistic features to express her main points from the tongue of an Eleven-year-old kid who is also ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, two and one year old. Key words: Lexical category, Eleven, Stylistic analysis, EFL, Short story

La identidad en juego: un acercamiento autoficcional a 'La casa en Mango Street'

Este artículo explica la construcción autoficcional de La casa en Mango Street, obra de la chicana Sandra Cisneros. Parte de la base teórica que considera la autoficción como un género no subordinado a otros, siguiendo la posición de Vera Toro, y elabora un estudio de las claves poéticas de la obra, así como de las condiciones sociohistóricas en que ha sido escrita. Analiza también cómo es el espacio el elemento narrativo fundamental que permite establecer una relación entre la creación literaria, la creación de identidad del pueblo chicano y la de la mujer-narradora de la obra. En este estudio no perdemos tampoco de vista el fuerte carácter crítico del texto: por un lado, observaremos la identidad en su colectividad chicana, atendiendo a ese espacio dinámico e híbrido o espacio intersticial, tal y como lo conceptualiza Homi Bhabha. Por otro lado, veremos esa identidad enunciada desde un sujeto-alteridad femenino, o más bien desde unas alteridades femeninas, poniendo en diálogo ese lugar intermedio con el de la paradójica wild zone que supone la narración de Esperanza Cordero.

IDENTIDADE CHICANA EM THE HOUSE ON MANGO STREET, DE SANDRA CISNEROS

O presente trabalho propõe a análise da obra The house on Mango Street, da autora chicana Sandra Cisneros. O intuito da pesquisa é investigar a influência exercida pelos construtos de gênero estabelecidos pela cultura chicana na formação da identidade da protagonista do romance. Por se tratar de um sujeito culturalmente híbrido e em desenvolvimento, a trajetória de Esperanza oferece um amplo leque de questionamentos que serão discutidos ao longo do texto com o aporte teórico de autores que investigam questões de identidade e questões gênero, como Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak, e Gloria Anzaldúa.

Art Comes for the Archbishop

Inspired by the Chicana feminist artist Alma López’s Our Lady (1999), this essay explores Chicana cultural and psychic investments in representations of the Virgin of Guadalupe. As an image of the suffering mother, the Virgin of Guadalupe is omnipresent in Mexican-American visual culture. Her image has been refigured by several generations of Chicana feminist artists, including Alma López. Chicana feminist reclaiming of the Virgin, however, has been fraught with controversy. Chicana feminist cultural work—such as the art of Alma López, performances by Selena Quintanilla, and writings by Sandra Cisneros and John Rechy—expand the queer and Chicana identifications and desires, and contest narrow, patriarchal nationalisms. By deploying critical race psychoanalysis and semiotics, we can unpack the libidinal investments in the brown female body, as seen in both in popular investments in protecting the Catholic version of the Virgin of Guadalupe and Chicana feminist reinterpretations.