| This dissertation analyzes novels and theoretical works by four twentieth-century Chicana writers: Gloria Anzaldua, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros and Erlinda Gonzales-Berry. Each author envisions a transnational female political subject in her work, through the development of her own Chicana feminism. By rewriting key historical episodes and political and cultural icons like La Malinche, La Virgen de Guadalupe, La Llorona and the soldaderas, these authors transgress the boundaries between history and literature, replacing earlier portrayals of Mexican and Chicana women as passive victims of history with positive depictions of women as political and historical agents. These writers transgress the borders between nations assumed in nation-state politics, revealing hybrid political and cultural identities that cross the U.S.-Mexico border to express a transnational feminist politics. Through the creation of imagined communities of readers of their texts, these authors posit both reading and writing as transgressive and transnational political acts. |
