Marci R. McMahon - Domestic Negotiations: Gender, Nation, and Self-Fashioning in US Mexicana and Chicana Literature and Art

Latinidad

Transnational Cultures in the United States

This series publishes books that deepen and expand our knowledge and understanding of the various Latina/o populations in the United States in the context of their transnational relationships with cultures of the broader Americas. The focus is on the history and analysis of Latino cultural systems and practices in national and transnational spheres of influence from the nineteenth century to the present. The series is open to scholarship in political science, economics, anthropology, linguistics, history, cinema and television, literary and cultural studies, and popular culture and encourages interdisciplinary approaches, methods, and theories. The series grew out of discussions with faculty at the School of Transborder Studies at Arizona State University, where an interdisciplinary emphasis is being placed on transborder and transnational dynamics.

Carlos Velez-Ibaez, Series Editor, School of Transborder Studies

Rodolfo F. Acua, In the Trenches of Academe: The Making of Chicana/o Studies

Adriana Cruz-Manjarrez, Zapotecs on the Move: Cultural, Social, and Political Processes in Transnational Perspective

Marivel T. Danielson, Homecoming Queers: Desire and Difference in Chicana Latina Cultural Production

Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., Becoming Mexipino: Multiethnic Identities and Communities in San Diego

Lisa Jarvinen, The Rise of Spanish-Language Filmmaking: Out from Hollywoods Shadow, 19291939

Regina M. Marchi, Day of the Dead in the USA: The Migration and Transformation of a Cultural Phenomenon

Marci R. McMahon, Domestic Negotiations: Gender, Nation, and Self-Fashioning in US Mexicana and Chicana Literature and Art

A. Gabriel Melndez, Hidden Chicano Cinema: Film Dramas in the Borderlands

Priscilla Pea Ovalle, Dance and the Hollywood Latina: Race, Sex, and Stardom

Luis F. B. Plascencia, Disenchanting Citizenship: Mexican Migrants and the Boundaries of Belonging

Maya Socolovsky, Troubling Nationhood in U.S. Latina Literature: Explorations of Place and Belonging

Domestic Negotiations

Gender, Nation, and Self-Fashioning in US Mexicana and Chicana Literature and Art

Marci R. McMahon

Rutgers University Press

New Brunswick, New Jersey, And London

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McMahon, Marci R., 1975

Domestic negotiations : gender, nation, and self-fashioning in US Mexicana and Chicana literature and art / Marci R. McMahon.

p. cm. (Latindad: Transnational Cultures in the United States)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780813560953 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 9780813560946 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 9780813560960 (e-book)

1. American literatureMexican American authorsHistory and criticism. 2. Identity (Psychology) in literature. 3. Mexican Americans in literature. 4. Mexican American arts. 5. Mexican American artists. 6. Nationalism and literatureUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.

PS153.M4M46 2013

810.9'86872dc232012033358

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright 2013 by Marci R. McMahon

All rights reserved

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Manufactured in the United States of America

I owe an enormous debt to the many mentors who have encouraged, supported, and shaped this project and my academic career. The underlying goals of this bookthe analysis of Chicana history through literature and visual arthas its roots in San Antonio, Texas, where as a high school student at Incarnate Word, I became active in social justice and literary arts movements in the city. At Incarnate Word, I was fortunate to be among a community of teachers that nurtured arts and activism, and I am particularly thankful to my high school English teacher, the late Mrs. Carol Mengden, who encouraged and nourished my writing skills and aspirations that made this book possible. I owe special gratitude to the faculty and graduate students in the English Department at the University of Texas at Austin, including Ann Cvetkovich, Barbara Harlow, Lisa Snchez Gonzlez, and Sheila Contreras, for introducing me to Chicana literature as an undergraduate. Like many, due to the Anglocentric histories and literatures of Texass educational systems, it was not until college that I read Chicana feminist authors, specifically the writings of Gloria Anzalda and Chela Sandoval. As a result of these UT faculty members, I became a feminist through Chicana feminism; border theory and third world feminism gave me the words to challenge socioeconomic and gendered divisions and to critically understand my white privilege. I extend my thanks to Zilla Goodman and Cvetkovich, who guided the completion of my undergraduate thesis, teaching me research skills and literary analysis, therefore enabling me to see myself as a scholar. I also offer my gratitude to Amalia Malagamba for introducing me to Chicana visual art; my interview with San Antonio artist Kathy Vargas at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center for her class was a critical point in my intellectual development; I thank Kathy Vargas for generously devoting her time and slides to that project.

My personal and academic interests in Chicana/o and Latina/o culture were deepened and expanded as a graduate student at the University of Southern California by Teresa McKenna, an incredible scholar and mentor. In McKennas classes, I was trained in Chicana/o literary and cultural studies and first studied the performance group Asco and the art of Patssi Valdez. Many other faculty members at USC guided this project, and I owe enormous thanks to Alice Gambrell and Laura Pulido for providing words of encouragement and asking critical questions. I offer a special note of gratitude to John Carlos Rowe, an incredible mentor, scholar, and role model, who continues to offer advice on the profession, providing guidance and encouragement. I am deeply grateful to George Snchez for supporting my work and providing a space for doctoral students doing work on race and ethnicity at USC; the seeds of this book were first nurtured in the Summer Dissertation Workshop led by Snchez in the Department of American Studies, Race, and Ethnicity, which was funded by the Irvine Foundation. Special appreciation is also due to the many faculty members at USC for supporting this project and my academic trajectory, specifically David Romn, Viet Nguyen, Heather James, Rebecca Lemon, Karen Tongson, David Lloyd, Bruce Smith, Tony Kemp, and the late Anne Friedberg, among others. I extend a note of thanks to Jack Blum and John Holland for nurturing the development of my teaching and pedagogy, which I continue to implement in my classrooms today.

Special and enormous gratitude is owed to my mentor and now friend and colleague Tiffany Ana Lpez, who from the beginning provided incredible guidance of this project through numerous meetings, phone calls, and conference chats, and who continues to offer generous championing of my scholarship. I am indebted to Lpez for teaching me how to be a mentor and pushing me to articulate my stakes and position within this profession. She introduced me to the work of Diane Rodrguez and Migdalia Cruz, providing me with a necessary pathway to conduct interviews with Rodrguez. My frequent conversations with Lpez about this book and the academyincluding conversations about race, gender, and tenure in the academyhave pushed me toward thinking critically about the impact I can have in academia and in the classroom. There are not enough words to thank Tiffany for her incredible and supportive mentorship.