Draft Version: Subject to Change
Feminisms in the Latin(a) Américas:
Women, Labor, Activism, and Literary Production
English 7053 Latina/o Studies
Fall 2010
Prof. Sonia Saldívar-Hull
MB 1.204
Office: MS 3.01.08
Email: sonia.saldivarhull@utsa.edu
Phone: 458-6278
Office Hours: Wednesday 11-12:00 & by appointment
Course Description and Objectives:
This seminar examines conditions and contexts that constitute feminisms in the Latina
Américas. This Bridge Called My Back edited by Gloria Anzaldúa and Cherríe Moraga
and Moraga’s Loving in the War Years published in the early 1980s are usually
considered the genesis of a contemporary Latina/Chicana engagement with feminism. In
these foundational texts as well as in other marginalized publications, Latinas/Chicanas
called for a US Third World feminism that is both transnational and activist and is not
confined to national borders. We will consider how these approaches to feminism allow
us to do justice to a transnational (transfrontera) feminism that crosses the US border in
solidarity with mujeres in the larger Americas. Students have the opportunity to consider
theories of mestizaje and indigeneity and study the specific historical and material
conditions of some indígenas south of the US border. We will discuss how the pressures
of material conditions, colonization, imperialism, civil wars, and revolution allow
subaltern/indigenous women to engage in everyday life activities that we may identify
feminist or mujer centered. We will examine how Chicana feminists conceptualized a
transnational alliance with indigenous and working class women in the US and across the
US border and read testimonios, a genre that offers previously silent subaltern women a
political literary genre with which to speak their positions. Concurrently, we will read the
theory of US Latina testimoniando, and analyze testimonio-like texts. Among the
learning objectives is to clearly differentiate these genres from traditional Western
genres, such as the autobiography, oral history, or memoir. We will analyze the authors’
construction of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, work, community, love and revolution
and bring attention to a Chicana “3rd Space” feminism centered on social justice.
Required Texts:
Elvia Alvarado Don’t be Afraid Gringo
Gloria Anzaldúa Borderlands/la frontera: The New Mestiza
Arturo Arias, Ed. The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy
Maria Elena Lucas, Forged Under the Sun
Gioconda Belli, The Country Under My Skin
John Beverley, Testimonio: On the Politics of Truth
Rosa-Linda Fregoso and Cynthia Bejarano, eds. Terrorizing Women: Feminicide in the
Américas**
Rigoberta Menchú I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
Cherríe Moraga Loving in the War Years
Cherríe Moraga The Last Generation
Cherríe Moraga, Waiting in the Wings**
Stella Pope Duarte, If I Die in Juarez **
Maria Teresa Tula Hear My Testimony
**Not ordered through UTSA bookstore
Selected Readings: Posted on Blackboard (BB)
Please note the university’s policy on Scholastic Dishonesty from the UTSA
Handbook of Operating Procedures:
“Part I, Chapter VI, section 3.22 of the Rules and Regulations of the Board of
Regents of The University of Texas System provides the following: Any
student who commits an act of scholastic dishonesty is subject to discipline.
Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism,
collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are
attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for
another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the
attempt to commit such acts.”
Please note the university’s policy on people with disabilities in the HOP
Section 9.2. Support services are available to students with documented disabilities
through the Office of Disability Services (DSS), MS 2.03.18. Students can contact that
office at 458-4157.
Course Requirements:
Students will participate in all seminar discussions, oral presentations, at least one
seminar facilitation, write weekly position papers, a bibliography, and a seminar paper in
two installments.
Students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss the assigned readings and to
share their thoughts and responses to the texts in class discussions. Bring the book or
essay we are discussing that day.
All students will write a one to two-page position paper, in which s/he critiques,
observes and/or contextualizes the reading.
Each student will facilitate at least one seminar, which includes a synopsis of the text,
an outline or bibliography, bringing up issues for further exploration by the class. You
may use PowerPoint if you wish. The facilitator is primarily responsible for initiating and
leading class discussion on the particular text(s) under consideration.
Seminar paper project: the prospectus (8-10 pages) is due on Week 6 at the beginning
of class.
The final paper (20-25 pages not including the Works Cited) is due on Finals Week. No
late papers accepted; I do not give incompletes.
Group/panel presentations 10%
Seminar Facilitation(s) 10%
Position Papers: 30%
Seminar Paper: First draft (8-10 pages) with working bibliography due mid term 20%
Final Essay: 20-25 pages, 30% Due date TBA
Class Schedule:
Week 1 August 30: Course introduction; identity politics and history. This Bridge Called
My Back see Blackboard readings (BB). Manifesto: US Third World and transfrontera
feminisms.
Week 2 September 6: Labor Day Holiday
Week 3 September 13: Borderlands, Mestizaje as method?
Cherríe Moraga, Loving in the War Years.
Suggested reading: Yvonne Yarbro-Bejarano, “(De)Constructing the Lesbian Body,” in
The Wounded Heart: Writing on Cherríe Moraga. (BB)
Week 4 September 20: Engendering Aztlán: Neo-nationalist feminism? Moraga, The Last
Generation, readings from This Bridge, and Third Space Maternity: Waiting in the
Wings.
Week 5 September 27: Testimonios as genre: John Beverley, Testimonio: On the Politics
of Truth. Josefina Saldaña Portillo, excerpts from The Revolutionary Imagination in the
Americas and the Age of Development; excerpts from Sandra Soto, Reading Like a
Queer: The Demastery of Desire. (BB)
Week 6 October 4: Rigoberta Menchú, Me llamo Rigoberta Menchú y asi me nació la
concencia (I, Rigoberta Menchú). Theory in the Flesh in This Bridge (BB). Elaine Scary,
excerpts from The Body in Pain (BB).
Week 7 October11: Panel Presentations: The Rigoberta Menchú Controversy.
Week 8 October 18: Panel Presentations continued
Week 9 October 25: Elvia Alvarado, Don’t Be Afraid, Gringo. Norma Alarcón, “In the
Tracks of ‘the’ Native Woman.” (BB)
Week 10: November 1: Maria Teresa Tula, Hear My Testimony. Helena Maria
Viramontes, “The Cariboo Cafe.” (BB)
Week 11 November 8: Maria Elena Lucas, Forged Under the Sun. Helena Maria
Viramontes, Under the Feet of Jesus excerpt. (BB)
Week 12 November 15: Gioconda Belli, The Country Under My Skin. Latina Feminist
Group, “Papelitos Guardados: Theorizing Latinidades Through Testimonio.” (BB)
Week 13 November 22: Rosa-Linda Fregoso & Cynthia Bejarano, eds. Terrorizing
Women: Feminicide in the Americas, xi-176. Film: Lourdes Portillo, “Señorita
Extraviada (Missing Young Woman).”
Week 14 November 29: Stella Pope Duarte, If I Die in Juarez. Terrorizing Women, 180333. Film: “Bordertown.”
Week 15 December 6: Dead Day: No class
Final Exam Day: December 9, 2010; 1:30-4 pm