LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Student Research Project

Jane Ftacnik
LITR 5731  American Minority Literature
7 May 2003

Chicana Feminism:  Assertion of Power  

     Recently in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, Cisneros describes how she developed the idea for her novel, House on Mango Street.  She rejected academia and in Cisneros' words, she realized that "…I don't want to write like this.  So how can I write something that is anti-intellectual and accessible to a taxicab driver, something that my aunts could open or a child could open?…I wanted to write a more people's type of fiction."  Within this quote are insights to the plight of the Chicana writer as evidence is presented that Cisneros' family was not educated.  She wanted to reach people who were functionally literate and not just academically literate.  She defies convention as she strives to go against the academic grain.  Within Chicana literature, conflicts exist that are never resolved.  Just as Cisneros has the ability to write a more sophisticated text but chooses not to in order to attract readers of various literacy levels, this is representative of many Chicana writers as they become educated, they risk relationships with their families. Chicana writers are battling against alienation from their families and other forms of oppression.  By writing about their cultural heritage and its oppressive influence on their lives, Chicana writers declare themselves feminists and freely describe such topics as sex, friendship, love, religion, and male dominance.  In order to examine how Chicana feminism manifests within literature, it is necessary to first define feminism and its role within Chicana literature, and then evaluate texts from Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo. 

     First, feminism defined without the modification of the word Chicana includes the study of how women have been depicted in literature written by male authors.  This includes a reference to the canon and how it has excluded women.  Female authors within the literary canon have been few in number, and this fact alone justifies further rationale for inclusion to the literary canon for women writers.  But for female authors to have a place in the literary canon, there would have had to have been literature produced by women, and this is scarce until the works from the English woman writer, Aphra Behn.  She is said to have been the first woman to have earned a living by writing.  But after her, there are still very few women in the literary canon, which traditionally includes writers such as Milton, Dryden, Pope, and Swift.  Virginia Woolf agrees with this as she asserts that "…a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction; and that, as you will see, leaves the great problem of the true nature of woman and the true nature of fiction unsolved (Woolf 4)."  Woolf is positing that women must have a place to work and must have financial support to write, and that until women have these things, the realm of fiction will not be fully explored.  Thus, works written by women will not be included in the literary canon because there simply are very few texts written by women because women do not have the financial means to support themselves and a place to write. 

     Feminists assert that we live in a patriarchal society that is controlled by men, and thus women lack a voice, and subject to being defined by male authors.  Women are often depicted in literature written by men as the way that men see them, which means that within texts written by men, there may be no intellectual female characters, and women may be seen as capricious or vindictive.  Worse, women do not have a voice simply because men have written the texts.  Women may be depicted as doing housework or raising children, or looking for a man to marry.  The options for female characters may be limited when created by male authors.  Women may be invisible, such as in the case of Frederick Douglass' slave narrative.  As he describes his life as a slave and then his eventual escape, he mentions his wife briefly at the end of his text.  Another example of a male author portraying women in literature is in the text of Gulliver's Travels.  When the main character, a male, reaches the island of the Brobdingnag, he encounters giant humans and he is seen as a dwarf-like character.  He describes a scene where he is enjoying a giant female's body, and she is portrayed as a nymph.  As Swift writes, "The handsomest among these Maids of Honour, a pleasant frolicksome girl of sixteen, would sometimes set me astride upon one of her nipples; with many other Tricks, wherein the Reader will excuse me for not being over particular (Swift 107)."  The argument is that unless a woman is writing, women cannot truly have a voice or choice in the way they are depicted in literature. 

          Having defined feminism in a broad sense as it relates to literature, we must now analyze what constitutes Chicana feminism.  To do this, it is necessary to review the cultural history of the word Chicana.  There are many definitions for this term, but perhaps the simplest and most widely accepted is a woman born in the United States from Mexican-American parents, as Kafka observes that "Vicki Ruiz defines the term Chicana as encompassing second-and-third generation Mexican American women (Kafka 1)."  Chicanas may speak both Spanish and English, or they may speak one or the other.  In literature, Chicana authors may use both Spanish and English or they may write in just Spanish or English.  Sometimes Chicana authors may not include translations of Spanish sentences or words, as the intermingling of both languages legitimately represents their voices.  Chicana implies a woman who may trace some evidence of Mexican ancestry in her lineage.  Along with that lineage may come emphasis on Mexican cultural traditions and a rejection of American ways.  Or, it may include references to some Mexican cultural traditions, as more generations of Chicanas are born in the United States, there is more distance between the Mexican ways and the American ways.  Chicanas must contend with the fact that they are a minority within the United States, and they live in a world dominated by white males.  The Mexican culture traditionally has oppressed women, as we will see in later analyses of work by Chavez and Cisneros.  Kafka acknowledges that "Regardless of the race and ethnicity of Chicanas, as females they were assigned no class ranking or status in their culture except that as females they bore a relationship to males (Kafka xxvi)."  So Chicana women presently live in a world dominated by white men, and they are part of a world that historically has been dominated by Mexican and Chicano men. 

     Chicana feminism includes the speaking out against representation of women as traditional caretakers and wives, and women who have been oppressed and the hardships they endure.  Embedded within the Mexican culture are figures such as La Malinche, La Llorona, and La Virgen de Guadalupe.  According to some Chicana feminists, these cultural representations serve to further oppress women and were conceived of by men.  Kafka supports this idea as she acknowledges Anzaldua's argument in her words, "Courageously including her own culture, this great critic indicts "male culture" for brainwashing Chicanas into believing that treachery flowed into their veins at birth from their maternal line only, from their female Indian foremother (Kafka xvi)."  Chicana writers manipulate these cultural references in their writing and expose them as exploitations of women.  Since they are and have been oppressed intellectually and politically, Chicana women often write stories and poems with political themes.  Chicana feminism embodies outrage over women's roles in life, including intellectually, sexually, and politically.  They seek to write their own freedom, as they have been bound to roles in life and literature that have left them oppressed. 

     Working within the framework of Chicana feminism, Sandra Cisneros addresses topics such as sexuality, abused women, Mexican stereotypes, and Mexican culture.  Cisneros has had to portray her heritage as not so pleasant as she describes the realities of growing up as part of a Chicana family.  For Chicana authors, it is impossible to separate their lives from their literature, and indeed Cisneros' incorporates much of her life into her stories.  The most famous work that she is known for is "The House on Mango Street."  This is a collection of short stories about life on Mango Street in Chicago, where Cisneros grew up.  Deborah Madsen notes "Although her early years were spent in cramped urban apartments, Cisneros recalls her childhood as solitary."  Because Cisneros was forced to live in urban environments and was constantly moving from Chicago to Mexico, she always seemed to be moving and so she may not have had many friends in the neighborhood, and so she began to read and write a lot.  As Madsen observes, The House on Mango Street "…draws heavily upon childhood memories and an unadorned childlike style of expression to depict life in the Chicano community (Madsen 107)."  Cisneros relied upon her experiences in the neighborhood in Chicago to create a series of short stories that explore Mexican stereotypes, poverty, friendships, and sexuality. 

     First it is necessary to review Cisneros' technique, as this influences her work.  As Madsen has mentioned, Cisneros' protagonist Esperanza speaks in the voice of a child, and this includes rhythmic constructions, sentence fragments, and disconnected thoughts.  Cisneros' uses a post-modern narrative technique as she utilizes a non-linear construction by stringing together various incidents and stories about people who live on Mango Street.  Within the text of "The House on Mango Street," it would be easy to dismiss an analysis of the text because of the way that the text is presented.  As Madsen acknowledges, "Issues of racial and sexual oppression, poverty, and violence are explored in a sequence of interconnected vignettes that together form a modified autobiographical structure (Madsen 107)."  This is a form of feminism, as she constructs her own way of telling the stories, rather than duplicating the conventional linear form of novels.  Madsen agrees as she posits "Like so many Chicana writers, Sandra Cisneros rejects the logic of the patriarchy in favor of more provisional, personal, emotional, and intuitive forms of narrative (Madsen 109)."  This form of Chicana feminism appears in many works by Chicana writers, and Cisneros employs it throughout all of her works.  Rebolledo maintains "It is often as a result of examining complex situations the young narrators do not understand-situations that often deal with societal rejections- that the narrators begin to understand what it means to be a woman, or what it means to be a Chicana (Robolledo 108)."  The way the text is presented is an integral part of the meaning of the text.  Valdes asserts that "The poetic text cannot operate if we separate the speaker from her language; they are the inseparable unity of personal identity (Valdes 166)."  Cisneros constructs the story from her reference as a Chicana and a writer.

     Having reviewed Cisneros' technique, let's examine some examples within the texts of both "The House on Mango Street" and "Woman Hollering Creek."  Beginning with "The House on Mango Street," Cisneros creates a character called Esperanza, and she is the narrator.  In her chapter titled, "My Name," Cisneros explains how the character received her name.  But within this seemingly comical and dreamy expression of a young girl, there are references to the oppression of women in both Mexican and Chinese culture.  As Cisneros writes, "She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse-which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong (Cisneros 10)."  Cisneros writes this passage from the authentic voice of a young girl, yet she demonstrates a jaded knowledge that women are oppressed in both the Mexican and Chinese cultures.  As the narrator describes her grandmother as a horse woman, this imagery would imply freedom and wildness, but then there is a perceptive observation about the Chinese and Mexican cultures as Cisneros points out that women are not supposed to be free or wild or "strong."  As Rebolledo notes, "As Chicana writers 'remember' their childhood, they are witnesses to the construction of their own identities and the development of an understanding of their historical role in their families and communities (Rebolledo 108)."  Cisneros' character Esperanza is attempting to understand her family's history, along with her place in the world.  Cisneros describes her grandmother as "wild" and not wanting to marry, until she is practically kidnapped by her grandfather and thus her life is melancholy after that.  In the words of Cisneros, "She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow (Cisneros 11).'   Cisneros uses the character of Esperanza to illustrate that oppressed women usually cannot and do not take any action to change their lives, so they lived trapped within their sad lives.  Madsen agrees as she maintains "This woman is the first of many Esperanza encounters who are broken in body and spirit by the patriarchal society that defines the terms by which they live (Madsen 109)."  In that succinct story, Cisneros articulates how painfully Chicana women live within the male-dominated society. 

     Cisneros' character Esperanza narrates how women are abused and controlled as describes her neighbor Rafaela.  She illustrates how Rafaela's husband can come and go as he pleases, yet Rafaela must stay in the house, and can only see the world from a window.  As Cisneros writes, "And then Rafaela, who is still young but getting old from leaning out the window so much, gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at (Cisneros 79)."  Within The House on Mango Street, Madsen acknowledges that "Women are depicted sitting by their windows, forbidden or afraid to enter the world represented by the street, literally and physically trapped in their imposed domesticity (Madsen 113)."  Cisneros' image of Rafaela is one of a young woman who is imprisoned in a abusive relationship. 

     Another example of an imprisoned woman comes within the story of Sally, who is a young girl like Esperanza, and whom cannot leave the house after school.  Esperanza does not quite understand this situation, and she asks her friend Sally questions, but there is no answer from Sally.  Cisneros brilliantly writes this story with only Esperanza talking as though Sally were not there to hear Esperanza.  Esperanza uses Sally's name, as though Sally were listening, but Sally cannot respond.  Esperanza is asking Sally questions, and there are no answers from Sally because she literally and figuratively cannot answer, as she is not permitted to socialize after school.  In Cisneros' words, "And why do you always have to go straight home after school?  You become a different Sally. (Cisneros 82)."  Sally has no opinion, and she cannot really speak to Esperanza, so she will probably never answer Esperanza.  Cisneros' also includes a reference to the male-dominated household of Sally's as she narrates, "Her father says to be this beautiful is trouble.  They are very strict in his religion.  They are not supposed to dance (Cisneros 81)."  Both the father and religion are oppressive influences on that household.  Cisneros curiously narrates through Esperanza that "they are not supposed to dance (Cisneros 81)" and this leads the reader to believe that perhaps they do dance anyway, even though Esperanza never explicitly tells us so.  Cisneros portrays a world where women do not have any choices even when they are young girls.  By describing this world through the voice of Esperanza, Cisneros demonstrates her Chicana feminism, as she creates an image of the male-dominated and patriarchal society in which she lived. 

     In "Woman Hollering Creek,"  Cisneros' continues her themes from "The House on Mango Street," only this time she narrates from an adult perspective.  Similarly, women are oppressed, but this time Cisneros does not rely upon a child-like voice and instead she narrates from the perspective of an adult Chicana woman.  In her story, "Woman Hollering Creek,"  Cisneros tells of a woman who marries a man and they go across the border to the United States, where he commits adultery and beats her.  But from the beginning, the woman is portrayed as controlled by men as Cisneros describes the woman's father granting permission to her suitor to marry her.  In Cisneros' words, "The day Don Serafin gave Juan Pedro Martinez Sanchez permission to take Cleofilas Enriqueta DeLeon Hernandez as his bride….(Cisneros 43)."  It is evident here that the woman has no choices, as her father must make the choice for her.  If he does not grant permission, there may be no wedding.  The way that Cisneros chooses to open the story allows the reader to visualize that woman, Cleofilas, as having no choice and being given from one man, her father, to another man, her husband, implying servitude in both cases. 

     But while Cleofilas has no choice, she comes from a family with a father who is supportive and who loves her, and she recognizes that type of love is eternal. The narrator of that story describes how Cleofilas thinks about this type of love when her new husband stays out all night. Cleofilas has knowledge of romantic love only through the televised soap operas.  She wonders about this because she thought that her married life would be like the life that the soap opera stars live, but instead she is forced into a life of abuse.  But it seems that Cleofilas cannot articulate why she is being beaten and instead relates her life to the telenovelas, as Cisneros writes:  "Cleofilas thought her life would have to be like that, like a telenovela, only now the episodes got sadder and sadder.  And there were no commercials in between for comic relief.  And no happy ending in sight (Cisneros 53)."  Although Cleofilas does admit that she thought that she would never permit a man to hit her, she cannot leave her husband because she has no money, and no transportation, and then her family and the neighborhood would talk about her.  Madsen notes "Consequently, these women are unable to describe, even to themselves, the reasons for their suffering (Cisneros 118)."  But there is more disturbing evidence that Cleofilas seems to forgive her husband for everything including gaining weight, and she makes the excuse that he has always been somewhat fat.  Cisneros writes:  "And he has a bit of a belly from all the beer he drinks.  Well, he's always been husky (Cisneros 49)."  Even after all of the beatings and infidelities, she makes an excuse for him, instead of blaming him for his actions.  He is not responsible for anything, and Cleofilas is responsible for everything. 

     Within the story of Woman Hollering Creek, there are references to the Mexican cultural myth of La Llorona.  Cisneros crafts this section of the story so that people who are not familiar with the myth of La Llorona will understand the gist of it.  This is enterprising on Cisneros' behalf, as she does not have to include the sentence that reveals the description of La Llorona, in Cisneros' words, "La Llorona, who drowned her own children (51)."  But in this one short phrase is the idea that this was the only option for the mythical figure, and it can be inferred that it may be the only option for Cleofilas, as the one area where she seems to have authority is with the care taking of the child.  The only action that could be taken would be to kill a child, and the mythical woman chose to drown her children.  The myth of La Llorona seems to reflect that the La Llorona was driven to such desperation that she killed her own children, but now she is eternally upset and haunts the countryside.  Cleofilas seems to briefly consider the idea of such actions; perhaps suicide or some other desperate measure to escape her present situation.  Cleofilas' misery is only within her, as she has no one to explain how she feels because she is isolated.  As Cisneros' writes, "Wonders if something as quiet as this drives a woman to the darkness under the trees (Cisneros 51)."  Only Cleofilas can feel that misery, and that is why it is described as quiet.  She does note recognize her misery as valid, as she questions the existence of it because it is silent and only in her realm of experience.  She has not had validation through sharing her experiences with another woman, and this implies that as a woman, Cleofilas cannot even adequately name her unhappiness, let alone take action to change it. 

     Ana Castillo once stated, as Madsen notes, "One of my goals is to have the Pope ban all of my works (Madsen 80)."  .  In her novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters, Castillo uses the two main characters to represent Chicanas who are friends and who have traveled together in Mexico.  Her again the construction of the novel has been subverted to reflect a feminist and non-linear form.  Castillo exerts her power as a Chicana feminist writer by constructing the novel as a series of letters that can be read in any order.  In the beginning of the novel, Castillo notes, "Dear Reader, It is the author's duty to alert the reader that this is not a book to be read n the usual sequence.  All letters are numbered to aid in following any one of the author's proposed options (Castillo 9)."  After Castillo makes that statement, she then groups certain letters under categories such as "For the Cynic," "For the Quixotic," and "For the Conformist."  Castillo allows her reader to become involved in the text, and interpret the text in different ways, rather than imposing a linear structure upon her reader.  In this way, she rejects the traditional patriarchal linear structure of the novel.  Madsen agrees as she points out, "Thus this technique requires that the reader declare his/her personality type and his/her own role in the reading process; the reader cannot be the passive consumer of the text or take a voyeuristic pleasure in the experiences of the protagonists-Teresa, who writes the letters, and Alicia, her respondent (Madsen 102)."  Instead, the reader chooses which path to follow, and Castillo recognizes that some readers will choose to read the letters in sequential order, and this does not matter to her, as she is allowing the reader to construct the novel in any way, including sequential.  As Castillo writes, "Good luck whichever journey you choose!"  Castillo empowers her reader; instead of asserting power over the reader, as the conventional structure of a novel might do. 

     In Castillo's text, The Mixquiahuala Letters, there are several elements representative of Chicana feminism, and only one of which is the construction of the novel.  On the surface level, the two protagonists are feminists, as they are traveling together without a male companion in Mexico, and they are both from the United States.  One has left her husband to do this, (depending on which sequence of letters you read), and so they are self-described liberated women, and in Mexico, the word has a different connotation.  When Teresa and Alicia are in the company of young men who are trying to seduce them, Teresa attempts to engage a man in intellectual conversation.  As Castillo writes for the male character, "Well, you gave me that impression, you know…of being 'liberal' and frankly, you appeal to me.  What do you say (Castillo 79)."  But Teresa responds by translating the word as in Castillo's italics, "Liberal:  trash, whore, bitch."  It is evident that in Mexico, a woman will never be liberated.  During the time that Teresa and Alicia spend inside the house, the men are constantly trying to seduce them, but they are able to escape without being overpowered.  As Teresa makes up a lie to her seducer, her friend Alicia easily supports the lie.  In Castillo's words, "Ponce looked at you and asked for confirmation concerning my marriages.  You nodded in a manner that I knew was born of indifference but to him was clearly matter of fact (Castillo 81)."  The understanding that the two women have as friends shows their feminine power, and Castillo ends the letter with one word:  "Checkmate."  She demonstrates that the women have triumphed over the men because they have used their wit to survive. 

     In Letter 19, the expectations of the Mexican man are revealed as Teresa meets a man who promises to marry her and buy a house and allow her to study languages and work in one of his businesses.  Teresa must admit to him that she is still married, and when she does, we see what his expectations were, as Castillo writes, "He wasn't pleased about this news, nor that I wasn't a virgin (Castillo 67)."  The Mexican man expects his wife to be a virgin, and not to ever have been married before, and so she must take steps to conceal that she has already been someone's wife.  The Mexican man proposes and projects their future together within hours of meeting Teresa, and she naively accepts his offer, and even sends her mother a letter about the marriage proposal.  Teresa describes her mother as being "ecstatic," and that she sees that her mother believes that Teresa was "finally redeemed" because of the marriage proposal.  We see that her Teresa is clinging to romantic ideal of having a family, and raising a child in a country where there would be no racism towards that child.  As Castillo writes, "I thought of the city I'd been brought up in, where dark skin and a humble background had subjected me to atrocities.  The children I'd have wouldn't know that persecution (Castillo 68)."  But while reading about the racism that Teresa suffered in the United States, it is difficult to believe that she seems ignorant that she is being covertly subjected to racism.  She admits that there are European women socializing at Sergio's hacienda, but that Sergio was only interested in their prospects as investment partners, not their sexuality.  She wants to believe that she is good enough for a Mexican man, and that because his skin resembles hers, he would not be racist towards her.  As she tries to convince herself, she asks, "Hadn't he toasted to the incomparable bronze skin of the tropical woman (Castillo 66)."  But as she later finds out, he withdraws his marriage proposal.  The Chicana woman does not fit into the world that she was born into, and people of her race reject her.  Castillo's work demonstrates Chicana feminism as she writes about the plight of the Chicana woman. 

     Castillo portrays Teresa and Alicia as Chicanas who are in Mexico, and they are trapped between identities that are imposed upon them.  They seem to have been ostracized by the United States, yet in Mexico they are instantly identified as either gringas or women from South America.  For example, in letter 21, they are walking on a pier, and they are accosted from the boys there, as Castillo writes, "Hey gringas, Oye, chula (Castillo 71)."  The local people recognize that they are not from Mexico.  Again in letter 20, the women are picked up by local men and they are in a car, and Teresa starts speaking to them in Spanish, and they instantly realize that she is from the United States.  In Castillo's words, "Having a better command of the language, I responded to their questions, but they detected an unfamiliar accent.  'Are you North American (Castillo 69)?"  This time Teresa settles on lying to the men and telling them that they are from South America.  She denies the truth and always wonders how the men know that they are not Mexicans, so Teresa begins to construct their own identities so that they are not Mexican, and not from the United States, but are from some South American country.  Their identities as Chicana women do not help them, and their Mexican heritage is ignored by Mexicans. 

     One final note within Chicana feminism is that an important part of Chicana literature includes the use of Spanish and English.  While reading texts from both Castillo and Cisneros, it is apparent that sometimes only Spanish words are used, and sometimes these Spanish sentences and phrases are translated directly, and sometimes indirectly and occasionally the authors choose not to translate the Spanish words.  This has an effect for all readers, be they bilingual or monolingual.  From a bilingual perspective, the Spanish words enhance the text.  For example, in Castillo's text, there is a scene where Teresa is clearly enjoying her food, and a Mexican man is attempting to seduce Alicia, and he utters the word "Gordita (Castillo 63)" to Teresa.  As Castillo writes, "It was about the time I finished a series of tacos.  Gordita (Castillo 63)."  Castillo does not translate this word, and leaves it up to the reader to surmise the meaning.  I laughed at this scene, and thought it was particularly humorous.  As best as I can describe it, the word means a fat woman in an funny way, as it like calling someone a "pig" who is eating a lot of food at one sitting, but not in a mean way, sort of a sarcastic observation.  It literally means, "little fat one."  The "ita" part of gordita is a diminutive of the root word, gordo/a, which means fat in English, and it indicates a bit of sarcastic humor, as the Mexican man has just met Teresa, and so from his point of view she appears to be eating too much and so he calls her a "gordita (Castillo 63)."  The diminutive also connotes some affection, so when a word is expressed with an "ita" or "ito" it is not usually meant to be malicious.  It is very difficult to translate that one word, as it expresses more of an idea.  Castillo comments on the use of both languages in an interview as she stated, "…because as a writer as well as a translator I do believe that translated words are not different names for the same thing.  They're different names for different things (www.anacastillo.com, interview)."  But for the monolingual reader, this scene probably would not have been as funny, as one might think that the word was worse than what it was and that the man was calling Teresa a bad name.  Or, the monolingual reader may read the scene and understand that the man is being sarcastic, but without really fully understanding the scene the monolingual reader will miss out on the humor and will not appreciate the scene as a bilingual reader would.  But it seems that the mixing of both Spanish and English within Chicana literature is a feature that will continue into the future as Castillo observed that "But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish (www.anacastillo.com, interview)." 

     In her story, One Holy Night, Sandra Cisneros describes how a grandmother reacts when she finds out that the protagonist, a teen-age girl, is going to give birth.  In Cisneros' words, "When Abuelita found out I was going to dar a luz, she cried until her eyes were little…(Cisneros 32)."  Again we find the diminutive as an affectionate form of the word abuela, so that abuelita means something to the equivalent of "my sweet little grandmother."  Within the Latino culture, if the word abuelita is not used in reference to a grandmother, this can indicate some estrangement on the part of the speaker towards a grandmother.  People may think the speaker is weird or a foreigner if the word abuela is used in reference to one's own grandmother.  The word abuela is the generic term used to indicate the formal name of the mother of either one's father or mother, while abuelita changes the meaning of the abuela word so that it becomes personal and shows love for the grandmother.  The monolingual reader may miss the nuance of that word so that the cultural reference is not relevant, and the bilingual reader will understand why that word is being used and that the grandmother is not just someone else's grandmother, but that the abuelita is the person's own grandmother. 

     The other Spanish phrase that is used is the colloquial term for giving birth, the phrase "dar a luz."  This is used as a vernacular phrase within the Spanish language, as it means literally to give light.  Initially, the monolingual reader may not know exactly what has happened to the protagonist of the story, but could probably infer from the text that she was pregnant, and indeed a paragraph later we learn that she has a miscarriage.  This term implies the honor of being pregnant and giving birth, as one is bringing "light" into the world.  When Cisneros was asked about the use of this phrase in the story, she responded that "My editor finally put in the margins, "I think you need to translate."  I said, "I wish I could, but I don't know how without the seams showing, so we're going to have to leave it.  People will have to use a dictionary; they can still get it.  I really feel that way.  I'm not going to make concessions to the non-Spanish speaker (www.acunix.wheatonma.edu interview)."  Cisneros asserts her Chicana feminism as she includes the use of the language that is part of her history. 

     Chicana feminism within literature serves as a testimonial to the lives of Chicana women.  As Chicana writers gain acceptance into the literary canon, they are opening doors for women all over the world. By using Spanish and English to express themselves, they defy convention and begin to create their own unique narratives.  When asked by an interviewer if she writes for a monolingual Anglo reader or a bilingual reader, Cisneros responded, "I think of a world reader.  My standards are very high (www.acunix.wheatonma.edu interview)."   Cisneros recognizes that some of her readers may be bilingual, and some may not, and some may be reading her work as it is translated into languages other than Spanish or English.  Whatever language it is written in, Chicana feminism within literature represents women's struggle for equality. 

Works Cited

Castillo, Ana.  The Mixquiahuala Letters.  New York:  Doubleday, 1992.  First published By Bilingual Press in 1986. 

Cisneros, Sandra.  The House on Mango Street. New York:  Vintage Contemporaries, 1991. First published by Arte Publico Press in 1984. 

Cisneros, Sandra.  Woman Hollering Creek and other stories.  New York:  Vintage Contemporaries, 1992. 

Kafka, Phillipa.  (Out)Classed Women.  Westport:  Greenwood Press, 2000. 

Madsen, Deborah L.  Understanding Contemporary Chicana Literature. Columbia:  University of South Carolina Press, 2000.

Rebolledo, Tey Diana.  Women Singing in the Snow.  Tucson:  The University of Arizona Press, 1995. 

Swift, Jonathon.  Gulliver's Travels.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 1998. 

Woolf, Virginia.  A Room of One's Own.  San Diego:  Harcourt, Inc., 1929.

Interview.  Houston Chronicle, 10 Oct 2002. Texas.  P 8-15. 

www.anacastillo.com  Interview.  NuCity, 18 June -July 1993.  Interview with Simone Romevo. 

www.acunix.wheatonma.edu/rpearce.  Interviews with Writers of a Post-Colonial World.

     Feroza Jusanwallax, Reed Dasenbrock.  (Jackson:  University of Mississippi Press, 289-291).