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Saddling La Gringa Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers
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Phillipa Kafka
ISBN: 0-313-31122-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-31122-2
192 pages
Praeger Publishers
Publication: 9/30/2000
List Price: $110.95 (UK Sterling Price: £76.95)
Availability: In Stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Description: Because of their ethnic identity, Latinas sometimes face discrimination in the United States. Latinas are additionally oppressed because of their gender—because they are women, they hold a subordinate position in patriarchal Latino culture. The oppression of Latinas is maintained through various cultural mechanisms, which sustain power relations based on gender. This book gives special attention to the role of female cultural gatekeepers in novels by contemporary Latina writers.

These gatekeepers enforce and perpetuate patriarchal cultural constraints onto future generations of Latinas. They construct and police female identity, including their own, through the use of idiomatic expressions, epithets, jokes, morality tales, and myths. The volume begins by examining Judith Ortiz Cofer's Silent Dancing, a work that clearly illustrates the role of gatekeepers in perpetuating gendered power relations. It then turns to the writings of Christina García, Julia Alvarez, Rosario Ferre, and Magali Garcia Ramis. Through their highly critical yet loving characterizations of female gatekeepers, these Latina writers suggest a different way of life for Latinas, a feminist way.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
    Introduction: Major Elements in the Works of Latina Writers
    Judith Ortiz Cofer, Silent Dancing
    Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban
    Julia Alvarez, How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents
    Rosario Ferre, The Youngest Doll and Other Stories
    Magali García Ramis, Happy Days, Uncle Sergio
    Bibliography
    Index
About the Author: PHILLIPA KAFKA is Professor Emerita of English and Former Director of Women's Studies at Kean University. Her previous books include (Un)Doing the Missionary Position: Gender Asymmetry in Contemporary Asian American Women's Writing (Greenwood, 1997), and The Great White Way: African American Women Writers and American Success Mythology (1993).
LCC Class: 813
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