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Literary Representations of Chicano/as and Mexicans in the Midwest by University of California - Los Angeles Occasional Paper No. 64 August 1999
Since the Chicano/a cultural renaissance of the 1960's and
1970's, the Midwestern United States has emerged as a geographical
reality in Chicano/a literature, sometimes merely as a common
destination for Chicano/as seeking work, but more and more often
as a site of vibrant Chicano/a communities. This paper examines
the divergent perspectives and attitudes in this literature toward
the Midwest, and toward Chicano/as and Mexicans who have made
their homes there. The first section examines texts by Pat Mora,
Alicia Gaspar de Alba, and Wendell Mayo, focusing on the ways
in which these texts offer the Southwest as the true Chicano/a
homeland and suggest that the experience of Chicano/as in the
Midwest is one of exile and isolation. The second part of this
paper discusses texts by Tomás Rivera, Ana Castillo, Sandra
Cisneros, and Hugo Mart°nez-Serros, and explores representations
of transnational and heterogenous communities of Chicano/as and
Mexicans in the Midwest. This analysis reveals the limitations
of a conception of Aztlán narrowly associated with the
Southwest, and suggests that the complexities of Chicano/a identity
demand greater attention to the diversity of regions in which
Chicano/as live and work.
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