Title: Show and tell
First published: 1997
Description: "What makes John Rechy a Chicano writer? To be Latino, must writing have a touch of "magical realism"? Can one talk of U.S. Latina/o identity, considering the diversity of the Latina/o experience? Through the analysis of nine recent Latino/a novels, Karen Christian answers these and other questions, thereby adding a fresh, bold voice to the anti-essentialist debate surrounding ethnic and gender identity. Christian melds the theory of "performativity" with the latest scholarship on ethnicity and ethnic literature to create a framework for viewing identity as a continuous process that cannot be reduced to static categories. Through their narrative "performances," U.S. Latina/o writers and their characters move among communities and identities in an ongoing challenge to the notion of Latina/o essence. This study is also among the first to examine trends across the spectrum of cultures represented in U.S. Latina/o literature--from Chicano to Cuban to Puerto Rican to Dominican." -- Publisher's description
Subjects: Hispanic American authors, Intellectual life, History and criticism, Hispanic Americans, Group identity in literature, Hispanic Americans in literature, American fiction, Ethnic groups in literature, American fiction, history and criticism, 20th century, American literature, hispanic american authors, LITERARY CRITICISM, American, General, Spaans, Engels, Fictie, Spaanse Amerikanen
Time periods: 20th century
LC classification: PS153.H56 C47 1997