This essay looks at Ethnic Studies activism in Arizona through a rhetorical lens in order to highlight epistemological aspects of activities such as a high school Chicano Literature class, Roberto "Dr. Cintli" Rodriguez's journalism, and student activism to defend the Mexican-American Studies Department. Taking rhetoric's premise that…

In response to the banning of Mexican American Studies in Tucson, students in the newly formed Chican@ Literature, Art, and Social Studies program displayed their resiliency in the face of the oppressive actions of the Tucson Unified School District and the state of Arizona. This article serves as a platform for the voices of these dedicated youth…

This article complements the existing body of Ruiz de Burton scholarship by providing the first sustained examination of her literary representations of American Indians in both "Who Would Have Thought It?" (1872) and "The Squatter and the Don" (1885), and by exploring how these representations serve her broader aims of social and political…

Preparing students as 21st century learners is a key reform in education. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills developed a framework that identifies outcomes needed for successful implementation of rigorous standards. The Dual Language (DL) program was identified as a structure for reform with systems and practices which can be used to prepare…

Rene Saldana, Jr., an assistant professor at Texas Tech University, is a writer of short stories, poetry, and novels. In order to get his storytelling right, he has relied on his memory when writing memoirs and consulted popular culture and family when writing fiction. In order to get his university teaching right, he reads seminal texts on…

Based on an oral history interview, this essay examines the work of Yolanda M. Lopez, one of the most significant Chicana artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It posits that her work portrays feminist intersectionality and oppositional consciousness, predating the Chicana feminist literature on these paradigms. Documenting her…

This article gives an analysis of two books: Thomas Rivera's "...y no se lo trago la tierra" and Helena Maria Viramontes's "Under the Feet of Jesus". The two books are strong and important literary texts that stand in close relation to each other. Both texts treat the subject of migrant childhood by affirming central themes of Chicano literature.…

Despite their differences in place and time, the woman-centered Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral and the Chicana lesbian feminist writer Gloria Anzaldua both looked to a transnational intellectual American history that frequently connected discourses of esotericism, indigenismo, and mestizaje. My comparative approach shows how both women used these…

This essay seeks to intervene in critical discussions about Arturo Islas's 1984 novel "The Rain God", as well as to suggest the potential for synthesizing discourses heretofore deployed in disparate conversations about disability, sexuality, and ethnicity. I first demonstrate how the novel's queer characters, Miguel Chico and Felix, pose critical…

This essay examines the working-class Mexican experience as represented in Jorge Ulica's "Cronicas Diabolicas," which he published between 1916 and 1926. What unites the wide-ranging subject matter of the chronicles is the author's resolute interest in maintaining his working-class compatriots' cultural and ideological ties to Mexico.…

In the world of Chicana fiction, Ana Castillo has achieved the kind of status Maxine Hong Kingston has attained within Asian American discourse. Castillo's work is popular not only with the general reading public but in many academic circles as well. What sets Castillo apart from so many other Chicana fiction writers is that she is also a…

The autobiographically modulated poetry and prose collection "City of God" (1994) and other published works by the late Gil Cuadros (1962-96) survive as an important set of AIDS testimonials, the first of their kind in Chicano literary production. This paper explores Cuadros's preoccupation with processes of identificatory signification and…

"Curanderismo," a Mexican folk practice, is a prevalent subject in Mexican American literature. Because much of the presence of "curanderismo" in Mexican American literature is only explored in ethnographic studies, the purpose of this study is to examine the artistic representation of "curanderismo" in the novels "Bless Me, Ultima" by Rudolfo…

Various literary views of the Mexican American woman have been presented over the past 150 years. Anglo treatment of Mexican American women in literature has varied from blatant prejudice or vague mystical eroticism in early portrayals to more realistic views of the Chicano in modern writing. The current identity crisis of Mexican Americans is…