Cultural semiosis in Mexican and Chicano feminine literature: Analysis of signs, language, and popular myths within the narrative of Mexican and Mexican-American women writers

The purpose of this study is to analyze the writings of two Mexican and two Mexican-American women writers in the context of their contemporary culture. Culture is composed by a multiplicity of signs; the study of signs is called semiotics and semiosis is the process in which signs interact with each other. The relevance of semiosis in this literary analysis serves as the basis to present how women writers perceive and express the politics of their culture through different concerns and ideas about the place of women within two countries: Mexico and United States. Issues like gender; race, class and the political roles for women in each country are signs that have similar or very different signification for Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. First the work of the Mexicans: Guadalupe Loaeza and Martha Cerda is analyzed. Second part explores the texts of “Chicanas”: Gloria Anzaldlia and Carmen Tafolla. There are differences among them but all have in common an awareness of the politics of contemporary culture that women have to face and contend.