Articulating Selves

Book excerpt: The work proposes a critical approach to Chicana identity in literature, supporting the thesis that ethnic identity is constructed through the articulation of the literary characters’ multiple selves. The analysis of the works of Wilbur-Cruce, Cisneros, Ortiz Taylor, Castillo, Limon, and Martinez places identities at the intersections of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class, focusing on the characters’ projects of reconstructing their past. The notion of ‘Articulating Selves’ also promotes a way of assuming the subject’s agency, as the characters give voice to their visions of ‘woman’ as an active, dynamic subject.