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, and articulations of gender, class, and sexual identities. In our readings of secondary materials we will pay particular attention to border theory and hemispheric studies, while examining the relationship among Latin American, American and Chicana/o studies.

Primary texts may include Americo Paredes's George Washington Gomez, Jovita Gonzalez and Eve Raleigh's Caballero, Arturo Islas's The Rain God, Sandra Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek, Lorna Dee Cervantes's Emplumada, Oscar Zeta Acosta's Revolt of the Cockroach People, Cherrie Moraga's Heroes and Saints, Helena Maria Viramontes's The Moths and Other Stories, Ernesto Galarza's Barrio Boy, plays by El Teatro Campesino, Ron Arias's The Road to Tamazunchale, John Rechy's The Miraculous Day of Amalia Gomez, and Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands / la frontera.

Likely films include The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Zoot Suit, Come and Take it Day, Born in East L.A., Senorita Extraviada, Salt of the Earth and Lone Star.

Secondary readings will include work by critics such as Norma Alarcon, Tomas Almaguer, Angie Chabram-Dernersesian, Mike Davis, Kirsten Silva Gruesz, Stuart Hall, Curtis Marez, Douglas Massey, Mae Ngai, Mary Louise Pratt, Jose Quiroga, Roger Rouse, Jose David Saldivar, Ramon Saldivar, George Sanchez, Rosaura Sanchez, Doris Sommer.