LITR 5731 Seminar in
Multicultural Literature: American Minority

sample student midterm Spring 2010

web review, essay, research plan
 

Alice Catherine Louvier

1 March 2010

Rainbow Black:

The Meaning of Darkness in African American Literature

The symbolic order in western literature incorporates imagery that relates “white” or “light” to positive values and “black” or “dark” to negative values. As a result,, Americans tend to think that the equation of white with good and black with evil is natural. In the study of Minority Literature, one sees that these “natural” associations have deleterious effects. The white/black dichotomy takes on added complexity when the author is African American, and incorporating imagery that equates “black” with “evil” implies a measure of self-loathing. Maintaining a racial identity for African Americans in literature is complicated by the fact that, when writing about race, one must confront discourse on degrees of darkness, or “The Color Code.” However, there are signs that African American writers have always resisted literary convention. Imagery from the slave narratives of Fredrick Douglas and Olaudah Equiano, “Dream Variations” by Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon all contain evidence that African American authors have never ascribed to the “naturalness” of equating dark with evil.

In his Life Story, Olaudah Equiano incorporates a vilification of whiteness by incorporating established literary devices (Objective 5). While he does not flinch at describing the cruelty of slavery and the evil of slavers, Equiano is generally solicitous of the good graces of white readers. For that reason, he does not engage in any overt white-bashing. However, he does include imagery that associates whiteness with cruelty. For example, he gives this description of a harmonious place he is taken in Africa before being shipped to Barbados:

…the trees which were loaded were also interspersed among the houses, which had commodious shades adjoining, and were in the same manner as ours, the insides being plastered and whitewashed. Here I also saw and tasted for the first time, sugar-cane. Their money consisted of little white shells, the size of the fingernail. I was sold for one hundred and seventy-two of these by a merchant who lived at this place. (53)

In this passage, the author begins a pleasantly pastoral description, saying how like home the place was. His inclusion of details like the white-washed interiors and the fact that he got his first taste of sugar cane there (a white, slave-dependant crop) are innocuous on their own, but they play on the conventional positive value of whiteness. Then he builds on that feeling in his almost dainty description of the money. When he tells of his sale in terms of that familiar, sweet, delicate, white money, it makes the harmless white seem cold and calculating. The effect would be more expected and less jarring if the money was green…or gold for that matter, but it was white.

          Frederick Douglas indulges in similar negative associations of whiteness, but his manner of doing so is far less subtle. Douglas is not at all apologetic in his criticism of white involvement in slavery. When he describes the scene he looked upon each Sunday across Chesapeake Bay he says, “Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition” (388). In this vivid metaphor, he incorporates the irony of white sails that simultaneously offer and deny freedom, personifying the sails in a manner that makes the whiteness look purposely cruel.

Douglas also uses a technique like that described in Objective 1c (literary strategies developed by minority cultures that engage the conscience of the dominant culture). In one instance, he says that the practice of white men selling the children fathered with slave women is, in some manner, humane, “…because unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but a few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back” (342). The passage attacks the consciences of the men involved because of their fathering and selling children. He also incorporates “The Color Code” (Objective 1d) into that shame by pointing out the similarity in the skin tones of the “white” and “black” children. 

In a particularly poignant passage, Douglas uses tar as an allegory for blackness. A white master tars the fence surrounding his garden to keep the slaves from taking the fruit. Being caught with tar on ones clothing or person is considered a sign of guilt and sufficient cause for whipping. Douglas says, “This plan worked well; all the slaves became as fearful of the tar as of the lash. They seemed to realize the impossibility of touching tar without being defiled” (351) (emphasis Douglas’s). Ostensibly, Douglas is saying the slaves feared the tar because it invites punishment. However he is also saying that the men learned to see blackness as something so malignant it corrupts whatever it touches; they also learn that, as black men, they are carriers of that evil. This bespeaks an internalized self-loathing that becomes a frequent theme for African American writers.

While neither author overtly connects the night with the color of their skin, convention does. So when both slave narratives associate nighttime with security and comfort, they contradict the “natural” fear of the dark/unknown. Both Equiano and Douglas report having terrifying nights on occasion (particularly Equiano on Barbados),  but nights more often contain what comfort there is to be found in rest and family. When he is transported through Africa as a child, night ends the fear of the day for Equiano who would is fed or even untied while his captors rest for the night (48). For Douglas, the night tends to offer a respite from the tortures of the day, like the night he is allowed to in St Michael before returning to Mr. Covey (392).

More importantly, nighttime is associated with whatever semblance of family either man ever knows. Early in his autobiography, Douglas says, “I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone” (340). So the only family life he ever experiences is after dark. Similarly, when Equiano last encounters his sister, he says that the men take pity in them, letting them sleep together. He says, “and the man , to whom I supposed we belonged, lay with us, he in the middle, while she and I held one another by the hands across his chest all night; and thus for a while we forgot our misfortunes in the joy of being together” (52). 

Langston Hughes builds on the association of night with comfort established in the slave narratives by making the relationship of night, darkness, blackness, and skin color a central metaphor in “Dream Variations.” In the two stanzas of the poem, Hughes uses language of race and color to invert both the power dynamic of “the minority concept” (Objective 1), and the syntactic roles of “Subject & Object” (Objective 5f-the “subject” is self determining and active in terms of voice, while “object” is acted upon). The stanzas depict two alternate ideas (dreams) of freedom using minimal variations in verbiage. In both stanzas, the night is a positive force, and in both the night is directly related to the color of the speaker’s skin.

 In the first stanza Hughes writes that the speaker of the poem dances “Till the white day is done.” He ends the stanza with: “While night comes on gently/ Dark like me--.” In this instance, the day belongs to “white” (white day). In addition, the language of “white” is the stronger, because “white” sets the standard and “dark” identifies self in relation to “white.” Dark is not a color; it is just darker than white. So in the “darkie’s” dream, the language of “white” dominates.

 Just as the word “black” never appears in the first stanza, the word “white” never appears in the second. Likewise, Hughes never mentions the day in the second stanza. Instead, he writes “Rest at pale evening,” ending the stanza with the lines: “Night comes on tenderly/ Black like me.” Hughes introduces color, or in this case color value, at evening time, which corresponds to “black” in the light/dark binary. Also, in this stanza “black” identifies self while “pale” identifies self in relation to black. Pale is not a color; it is just paler than black. So in the “black’s” dream, the language of “black” dominates.

While both stanzas describe the approach of night in positive terms, the second time seems more comforting. In the first stanza, “Night comes on gently” and in the second, “Night comes on tenderly.” There is a subtle difference. One handles an egg gently; one handles a baby tenderly. Coming “gently” is a positive image in the manner of the slave narratives. It might well describe the night time role of Douglas’s mother discussed earlier, “she would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone” (340). She treats him with care, but she does not have time to rock and cuddle.

Like African American writers that come before her, Toni Morrison associates the night with dark skin tones. However, rather than follow the established model and simply equate “black” with “night,” she writes about the degrees of darkness within the night. She expresses this concept metaphorically with Pilate’s words: “You think dark is just one color, but it ain’t…night black is the same [as green]. May as well be a rainbow” (41). In order to understand the metaphor, one must understand what Morrison means by “night,”  “black,” and “rainbow.”

In the works of Douglas, Equiano, and Hughes, “black” is one half of a black/white binary, where black is “us” and white is “them.”  These authors rewrite the traditional symbolic codes of black and white to make black represent positive values of strength and goodness, and white represent negative values of weakness and evil. By this means, they address invert the Dominant-Minority relationship (Objective 5f).

 Morrison diverges from these models by leaving “white” or “light” completely out of the metaphor. The absence makes the contrasting hues within “night black” more apparent. In the absence of a white light, differences in black become more evident. Morrison’s literary strategy forces the reader to look at “black” within an exclusively black frame of reference. From that vantage point, non-black readers get a picture of the African American community from within. In this way Morrison uses the power of fiction to help “others” hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience (objective 5a). 

Equiano, Douglas, Hughes, and Morrison all connect dark skin tone with the darkness of night. However, the earlier authors treat the darkness of night as a positive force that offers escape from the white, light, of day. In their work, black people are all “children of the night,” and the dark “mother” offers each of her children whatever comfort she can. In Song of Solomon, the night takes on a far more complex identity.

Morrison’s night is more like a “realm of darkness” than a family unit. In this realm, Milkman confronts self and community. For instance, Milkman goes on a nighttime hunt with the men of Charlemagne to seek acceptance within traditional community. Once alone he realizes that “If he was to grow accustomed to the dark, he would have to look at what it was possible to see” (273). By focusing his attention directly into the dark, he experiences an epiphany of self that makes him part of the darkness around him and, through contact with the earth, he is able to anticipate the danger of Guitar’s attack. When he fires his gun, the traditional community saves him from the friend who kills with the calculated coldness of modernity (271-81).

On one level, Morrison’s “black rainbow” refers to the wide variety of skin tones and comparative African-ness of features among African Americans, a.k.a. “The Color Code” (Objective 1d).  Fredrick Douglas writes about this in reference to his own parentage and that of other biracial children of white men.  While complexion has something to do with an individual’s reception into white society, Morrison is more concerned with the racial hierarchy it sets up in the African American Community.  The family dynamic surrounding the fairness of Ruth and her daughters, compared to the darkness of Macon and Milkman focuses on this tension. However, the rainbow of black within Song of Solomon refers to more than complexion. It has to do with loyalty and black identity.

Milkman is one of the darkest characters in the novel, yet he becomes a target of The Seven Days, a group dedicated to murdering white people in order to maintain racial balance. Because of economic privilege, Milkman functions at a social level similar to that of the white elite. As a result, with the exception of his friend Guitar, he develops very little loyalty for the black community. Ironically, just as Milkman connects to his “people,” he is targeted by “the Days.” At one point, Milkman asks Guitar if he could ever kill him (Milkman), to which Guitar replies, “we don’t off Negros” (161). The fact that Milkman is marked means that he loses his “Negro-ness.” This puts him on the light end of a “racial rainbow.” So “The Color Code” is not the determinant of his racial status. In this case, the concept of light and dark are not clearly delineated by the “rules.” The color value within a black spectrum is determined from the inside.

While the concept is far from universal, the Idea that light or white represents good and dark or black represents evil is an integral part of the symbolic code that American readers recognize. However, dark or black American authors work in opposition to that familiar pallet of images. Begining with the slave narratives, African American writers have resisted the culturally accepted binary. The examples examined here show the evolution of that resistance. Olaudah Equiano subtly incorporates imagery that associates “white” with cruelty. Fredrick Douglas uses morality stories and vivid metaphors to expose the cruelty and injustice intrinsic to the institution of slavery.  Langston Hughes inverts the symbolic equation to make “black” the strong and “white” the weak. Toni Morrison takes the power to define blackness outside the conventional binary, to situate “positive” and “negative” values in a black spectrum. As a group, they have managed to overcome the challenges of Objective 1 (the power relationship in “minority concept”) to accomplish the goals of Objective 5 (influence literature, literacy, and language).

In class Dr. White posed the question of whether a course in Minority Literature should focus more attention on the minority component or the literary component of the subject matter. So far, the class has not come to a conclusion. However, Toni Morrison made an observation about symbolism in Moby Dick that might apply. In her essay “Unspeakable Things Unspoken” Morrison points out that the “white whale” is “as much its adjective as its noun” (Unspeakable 141). The same could be said of “Minority Literature.” One can no more separate the minority from the literature, than one can separate the whiteness from the whale.   

 

 

Web Review:

I

 “By any Other Name, or The Importance of Names and Naming in American Minority Culture” by Corey Porter

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/midterms/mt07f/mt07fporter.htm

 In his essay, “By any Other Name or The Importance of Names and Naming in American Minority Culture,” Corey Porter addresses his topic primarily as it relates to Objective 6 (To observe images of the individual, the family, and alternative families in the writings and experience of minority groups). He examines names as signifiers of self, and as points of reference within communities. Further, he shows how the reclamation of African names provides a link to the past while ushering in “new patterns of thought.”   To make his point, he focuses on Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, the poetry of Ameer Baraka, and the slave narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Harriett Jacobs.

Porter does a good job examining Morrison’s use of names--both to represent the personal identity of the characters, and to define the characters and places in relation to the community. He also successfully links the reclamation of names with the reclamation of power by analyzing quoted text from Ameer Baraka’s “leroy.” In addition, while he minimizes the scope of Jacobs’s work by saying that she takes on the name of Linda Brent “to move wealthy white women of the north,” Porter clearly recognizes that the name change is designed to appeal to the educated (white) majority. However, his conclusions about the role of naming in Equiano’s narrative are problematic. 

Porter mistakenly interprets the Igbo’s renaming their trade partners. Equiano talks about relations between his people and a group they call the “Oye-Eboe” (red-men living at a distance). His people use this epithet to refer to the “others” even though that is not what the people call themselves (their name).  According to Porter, “this renaming is benign, however, for Equiano presents a scene of mutual benefit and understanding between two groups.”  However, while the situation may be functionally benign, it is not philosophically so. When Equiano’s people refuse to use their partner’s self- determined name and assign one meaningful to the Igbo, they define the “others” in relation to their own community. This separation of “self” and “other” through language is designed to circumvent mutual understanding. Such delineation shows that, while all Africans are black, they are not all of one people, thereby contradicting slave advocates claim that “Negros” are uncivilized traitors of their brethren.

In addition to misreading the renaming of the “other” community, Porter underestimates the importance of the author’s multiple name changes. He points out the biblical origins of the two names (Michael and Jacob) assigned to Equiano between the time he is captured and the time he is given the slave name of record, Gustavus Vassa. He accounts for these choices with Rosalyn Mack’s words “as was quite common during the slave era, newly captured slaves were given biblical names more out of expediency than any real sense of religious sentiment.” However, this cavalier dismissal of the names, their meanings, and their relationship to scripture is not consistent with the emphasis Equiano places them. 

In a class discussion, Dr White mentioned an unclear, but recurrent tradition that ties African slaves to Jewish culture before their abduction to America. When Equiano compares his people’s manner of naming to that of the Jews he gives evidence of that theme; his attachment to the name “Jacob” suggests a more complicated association.  Porter describes the biblical Jacob as “the studious grandson of Abraham,” but the Jacob of Genesis is much more than this description allows. Jacob is the Judaic patriarch renamed by the Angel of God; he is thereafter called “Israel” and the children of Israel are “the chosen people.” There is no sign that Equiano actively resists the change of his original African name for Michael, or the change from Michael to Jacob, but he withstands multiple beatings in order to keep the name “Jacob.” The biblical tradition connecting the name “Jacob” with renaming, racial identity, and righteousness, combined with Equiano’s determination to keep the name, suggests a meaning beyond “expediency.”  One might even suggest that Equiano’s name association with “Jacob” is a poetic fiction of the narrative.

While the analysis throughout most of Porter’s exam is sound and the information it contains easily falls within the boundaries of objective 6, this review addresses facets of the essay that pertain to additional Objectives. The focus on the name “Jacob” in Equiano’s narrative directly relates to Objective 5e (To emphasize how all speakers and writers may use common devices of human language). Equiano uses biblical illusion as a literary device when he fights to keep the name “Jacob,” relating his own story to that of the biblical Jacob (the quintessential renaming in Judeo-Christian scripture). Also, the incident of the Igbo renaming their neighbors contradicts the precepts of racial “sameness” expressed in Objective 4b (to distinguish the ideology of American racialism—which sees races as pure, separate and permanent identities). However, despite these few debatable points, Porter’s essay shows how the universal concept of naming is a major component of African American literature from the beginning.

II

“Flight, Naming & Dream Motifs in Song of Solomon” by Gordon Lewis

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/midterms/mt07f/mt07flewis.htm

In his 2007 midterm, “Flight, Naming & Dream Motifs in Song of Solomon,” Gordon Lewis examines the three elements of the title individually rather than connecting them with one another. The technique does not make the essay particularly unified, but it does make the work uncomplicated and very assessable. While the essay is engaging, it is hard to find a clear thesis… or at least hard to connect the apparent thesis (the novel has been identified as magical realism and almost an epic) to either the title or the bulk of the essay. However, Lewis follows a logical progression from one paragraph to the next, so even if readers do not know where the information is going, they have no problem following it.

He begins by placing Song of Solomon in the literary genre of Magical Realism based on the central role the myth of the flying Africans plays in the plot. Because it is the source of the flight motif in the novel, he gives an account of the legend and its origins based on information in Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales. In the story, a group of newly arrived Igbo slaves commit suicide by walking together in chains into the Georgia swamp; “people” say the shackled Igbo flew back Africa rather than give up their freedom.

Lewis does not analyze the meaning of the myth in the novel. Rather, he reports on the theme of flight as a component of its construction, pointing out the consistency of the imagery and the text book perfection of the novel’s “full circle ending.” He includes a fascinating passage that reports Morrison’s own explanation of the flying motif in Song of Solomon, which she says is “deliberate for both the novel and for her personal stage in writing.” Among other things, she directs attention to the generally northern direction of flight within the novel, and relates that to her own movement away from the familiar world of female characters into the new territory of male characters. Her comments suggest that flight is as much progression as escape. Lewis’s remarks make the reader understand that Morrison is far more than a literary artist; she is also an expert craftsman and consummate pedagogue who is able to construct her novel, explain how she did it, and why it works.

Lewis moves on to discuss names and naming as a motif in the novel, again focusing more on information and observation than analysis. After noting the considerable amount of attention Morrison affords each character’s name and its source, he integrates some interesting observations from outside sources. He addresses the topic of names in the African American community with Naomi Van Tol’s comments about Song of Solomon. Van Tol calls attention to the fact that African Americans have traditionally been denied self-identified names and adds, “the ability to choose our own names verifies individual power.” Lewis also brings in a thought provoking comment made by Danny Corrigan on his 2004 midterm essay: “by identifying himself both as Olaudah Equiano and Gustavus Vassa on the cover of his narrative, Equiano is able to achieve a bi-cultural perspective.” While he does not relate the quote directly to Song of Solomon, its relevance to Objective 4a (To identify the “new American” who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic or gender identities) from such an old source warrants comment.

One of the more interesting elements in Lewis’s piece is the passage in which he discusses the naming of locations. He comments on the aptness of place-names in the novel, directing attention to the many times the name recognized by the black community is a negation of the name assigned by the white community (No Mercy Hospital; Not Doctor Street). By way of comment, Lewis reports Naomi Van Tol’s conclusion: “the refusal of the black community to accept arbitrarily imposed names constitutes opposition to an oppressive white power structure.” In addition, the discussion on the contrary nature of place-names provides a springboard for further analysis about the contention between black and white signification.

Lewis briefly examines the negative image of the family in Song of Solomon. He suggests that the dysfunction of the Dead family is part of a long tradition of broken families in African American literature. Using scenes from the slave narratives of Fredrick Johnson, Olaudah Equiano, and Harriet Jacobs, Lewis shows how kidnapping, threat of sale, and lack of control all made disruption of the family unit an integral part of enslavement.  His many examples of broken slave families suggest that the dysfunctional families in Song of Solomon (among others) stems from the history of family disruption imposed by slavery.

The discussion on the African American family ends in a paragraph linking the Dead family to “The American Dream.”  Lewis shows how three generation of the Dead family men all reach for, and “within the constraints available to the minority businessman” achieve the American Dream. While Lewis does not draw any conclusions from the Dead family history, it seems apparent in the novel that success marginalizes them in both the white and black communities.

The conclusion of the essay is very disjointed and generally weak, but Lewis makes his smoothest transition when he moves from the African American Dead family, to The American Dream, to “The Dream” of Objective 3a (“The Dream” resembles but is not identical to “The American Dream.” Whereas the American Dream emphasizes immediate individual success, “the Dream” factors in setbacks, the need to rise again, and a quest for group dignity.). Unfortunately, after that paragraph, he launches into a litany of unrelated examples from course readings that focus on the alternate dream narrative of African American literature. He finally ends with a rambling afterthought on his preference for Objective 5 (To study the influence of minority writers and speakers on literature, literacy, and language).

Lewis’s essay is a good source for information and inspiration.  While he does not actually draw any conclusions (at least none of his own), Lewis assemble a useful array of ideas. It is a bit choppy (especially at the end), but data is divided into sections, each focused on one of the four motifs in the title (flight, naming, family, dream). Each section bundles relevant bits of opinion, observation and facts relating to a single topic. By bringing together a variety of sources, these bundles contain foundational material for future essays and prompt a significant amount of analytical thought.

III

“Literature, Literacy, and Language” by Jill Reioux

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/5731/models/midterms/mt01/mt01reioux.htm

Although it gets off to a slow start, Jill Reioux writes a well organized and perceptive analysis of African American writing and writers in her 2001 midterm “Literature, Literacy, and Language.” The essay suffers from a weak thesis (The influence of minority writers and speakers on literature, literacy, and language is certainly notable) but her handling of the subject matter is strong. Rather than dealing with literacy, literature, and language individually, she the traces the simultaneous evolution of all three components by looking at the work of individual authors from different points in time. The technique effectively communicates interlocking relationship of African American literature, literacy, and voice in the American canon.  

In her essay Reioux states: “there is no doubt that African-American writers understand that literacy is the primary code of modern existence and a key or path to empowerment.” She uses the statements promoting literacy made by Fredrick Douglas and Olaudah Equiano in their slave narratives, and the subject matter of Sapphire’s novel Push to support this claim. By drawing from both early examples and contemporary work, Reioux shows that advocacy of literacy is an ongoing theme in African American literature. Further, she stresses the tendency of African American writers to put their literacy to use, pointing out Equiano’s active choice to use the ability to write for the purpose of getting his story heard. She reminds readers that he published his autobiography in hopes that it “affords any satisfaction to [his] numerous friends…or in the smallest degree promotes the interests of humanity.”

While she allows that the authors under discussion are generally respected and often included in the curriculum in American schools (with the possible exception of Sapphire), Reioux concentrates on Toni Morrison as a literary artist. She points out instances where Morrison uses universal tools of writers to tell an African American story. While Reioux does not specifically mention the class reference, she suggests that Morrison Morrison’s work directly relates to Objective 5e (To emphasize how all speakers and writers may use common devices of human language to make poetry, including narrative, poetic devices, double language and figures of speech). Reioux’s praise of Morrison’s vivid imagery, poetic language, and sophisticated structure suggests that the author’s work is equally respected in both traditional and African American literary circles. 

While Reioux repeatedly mentions voice in terms of self-expression as it relates to Objective1b (Voiceless and Choiceless- contrast the dominant culture’s self-determination or choice through self-expression or voice), she also devotes a lot of attention to literary voice as it relates to Objective 5a (To discover the power of poetry and fiction to help “others” hear the minority voice and vicariously share the minority experience.). She notes the concentrated effort the authors of the slave narratives make to develop the formal style of the classical canon in order to gain the respect of the educated, white reading public. By tracing the development of that “voice” of the classical canon into a more the more distinctively African American voice of colloquial language, she spotlights the variations of style in the twentieth century ranging from the classical style of Countee Cullen to the Ebonics of Sapphire. Reioux suggests that Morrison reaps the benefits of the African American writers that came before when she writes, “so thanks to her predecessors, Morrison feels no constraints as she writes in a highly complex narrative voice and a lower level character voice.”

Reioux’s essay is not without flaws. On the contrary, it suffers from a weak introduction and an even weaker conclusion. Furthermore, while the essay shows an understanding of the precepts addressed in the class, it suffers by failing to directly apply the analysis to the course objectives. However the body of the paper shows good critical thinking skills. She does not simply report on individual pieces, she looks at multiple examples in relation to one another, and tracks the evolution of African American voice in literature.

 

 

Research Option:

conference proposal & presentation

The Lady Speaks: Giving Voice to “Our Lady of Guadalupe”

          For my semester project, I would like return to the research of my final exam essay from LITR 4332 (undergraduate Minority Literature)/ Fall 2008, “The New Virgin of Guadalupe”. I realized at the time that my exam essay did not give me enough space to fully explore the subject matter, and welcome another chance to do so. In the essay I set aside The Virgin’s familiar image of passive submission to look at her as a model of feminine strength. The Wild Tongues Graduate Symposium sounds like an ideal forum for research that transforms Our Lady’s female paradigm from one of compliance to one of empowerment.

I would like make some changes in the direction of my earlier research.  While I brought in incarnations of the Blessed Mother from other parts of Latin America in 2008, this time I would focus exclusively on the Guadalupe image. I would also delve more deeply into the history of the Sacred Feminine in that part of Mexico, paying particular attention to the indigena divinities that had shrines on the site of the Basilica before Mary’s apparitions to Juan Diego. In addition, while I thinkThe Lady of Guadalupe provides an image of strength for all women, it important to acknowledge and analyze Guadalupe’s particular closeness to the Latina community.

There are also a few practical matters that I need to address. Since the essay contains a section about artwork based on the depiction on Juan Diego’s tilma, I should entertain the possibility of using visual aids to show the images described in the paper.  Also, the words one uses in minority discussions frequently change, and sometimes terminology becomes outmoded and offensive. Since I am already dealing with a sensitive subject, it is doubly important that I find a reliable source for appropriate terms to use in my paper. Along those same lines, if I am to read aloud, I must learn how to pronounce the ancient goddess’s names. That may be more easily done than I realize, but their language of origin has not been used in a very long time and the names have a disproportionate number of consonants. Very likely a Latina feminist organization would be able to help me in both areas.  I found a website that looks promising.

Chicana Studies Scholars Directory  http://www.chicanas.com/chicademe.html