Department of English
This class will familiarize students with cultural works by Chicanas/os (people of Mexican descent living in the US) in the twentieth century, as well as with numerous key texts in the history and theory of Chicana/o Studies. We will move chronologically in our study of a variety of novels, poems, plays, and films, while being guided by several historical and cultural coordinates. These will include oral traditions, the Mexican Revolution, the Chicano Movement and social protest, notions of mestizaje, articulations of gender, class, and sexual identities, and the influence of magical realism and the Latin American "Boom" on Chicana/o writers. In our readings of secondary materials we will pay particular attention to theories of race and ethnicity, border theory, comparative Americas studies, and current debates about "post-ethnic" or "post-Chicano" configurations of subjectivity.
Primary texts may include Américo Paredess George Washington Gómez, Luis Pérezs El Coyote, the Rebel, Cleofas Jaramillos Romance of a Little Village Girl, Jovita González and Eve Raleighs Caballero, Arturo Islass The Rain God, Sandra Cisneross Woman Hollering Creek, Ana CastillosSo Far from God, Lorna Dee Cervantess Emplumada, Oscar Zeta Acostas Revolt of the Cockroach People, Cherrà e Moragas Heroes and Saints, Helena Marà a Viramontess The Moths and Other Stories, Ernesto Galarzas Barrio Boy, plays by El Teatro Campesino, Ron Ariass The Road to Tamazunchale, John Rechys The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gómez.
Likely films include The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Zoot Suit, Come and Take it Day, Border Brujo, Born in East L.A., Señorita Extraviada, Salt of the Earth.
Secondary readings will include work by critics such as Norma Alarcón, Tomás Almaguer, Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, Mike Davis, Juan Flores, Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Stuart Hall, Curtis Márez, Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Roger Rouse, José David Saldà var, Ramón Saldà var, George Sánchez, Rosaura Sánchez, Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano.