1. Chicana/o Critical Regionalism and the Case of Cleofas Jaramillo.- 2. Moving Away from the “Master”: Américo Paredes and Mexican American Women Writers.- 3. Autobiography and the Gender of Place: Elena Zamora O’Shea, Fray Angélico Chávez, and Richard Rodriguez.- 4. Ethnography and the Place of Gender: Jovita González, Mario Suárez, and Mary Helen Ponce.- 5. Chicano Poetry, Chicana Art: Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales and Carlota Espinoza.- 6. Coda: On Santa Fe and Chicana Art.
Melina V. Vizcaíno-Alemán is Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of New Mexico, USA. She has published articles in Southwestern American Literature, Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, Southern Literary Journal, and Western American Literature. Her teaching and scholarship focus on race, class, ethnicity and gender.
This book is a study of gender and place in twentieth-century Chicana/o literature and culture, covering the early period of regional writing to contemporary art. Remapping Chicana/o literary and cultural history from the critical regional perspective of the Mexican American Southwest, it uncovers the aesthetics of Chicana/o critical regionalism in the writings of Cleofas Jaramillo, Fray Angélico Chávez, Elena Zamora O’Shea, and Jovita González. In addition to bringing renewed attention to contemporary writers like Richard Rodriguez and introducing the work of Chicana artist Carlota d.Z. EspinoZa, the study also revisits the more recognized work of Américo Paredes, Mario Suárez, Mary Helen Ponce, and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales to reconsider the aesthetics of gender and place in Chicana/o literature and culture.