"Criticism in the Borderlands maps the significant contribution of Chicano and Chicana literary and cultural studies toward defining a culture of resistance in the United States. . . ." --Suzanne Oboler, Novel: A Forum on Fiction

Héctor Calderón and José David Saldívar, eds.

Acknowledgments ix
Foreword: Redefining American Literature / Roland Hinojosa xi
Editors' Introduction: Criticism in the Borderlands 1
Part I. Institutional Studies and the Literary Canon
Narrative, Ideology, and the Reconstruction of American Literary History / Ramón Saldívar 11
The Rewriting of American Literary History / Luis Leal 21
The Theoretical Subject(s) of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-American Feminism / Norma Alarcón 28
Part II. Representations of the Chicana/o Subject: Race, Class, and Gender
Imprisoned Narrative? Or Lies, Secrets, and Silence in New Mexico Women's Autobiography / Genaro Padilla 43
Body, Spirit, and the Text: Alma Villanueva's Life Span / Elizabeth J. Ordóñez 61
Ana Castillo's The Mixquiahuala Letters: The Novelist as Ethnographer / Alvina E. Quintana 72
Fables of the Fallen Guy / Renato Rosaldo 84
Part III. Genre, Ideology, and History
The Novel and the Community of Readers: Rereading Tomás Rivera's Y no se le tragó la tierra / Héctor Calderón 97
Ideological Discourses in Arturo Islas's The Rain God / Rosaura Sánchez 114
Conceptualizing Chicano Critical Discourse / Angie Chabram 127
Sites of Struggle: Immigration, Deportation, Prison, and Exile / Barbara Harlow 149
Part IV. Aesthetics of the Border
Chicano Border Narratives as Cultural Critique / José David Saldívar 167
On Chicano Poetry and the Political Age: Corridos as Social Drama / Teresa McKenna 188
Feminism on the Border / From Gender Politics to Geopolitics / Sonia Saldívar-Hull 203
Dancing with the Devil: Society, Gender, and the Political Unconcious in Mexican-American South Texas / José E. Limón 221
Works Cited 237
Selected and Annotated Bibliography of Contemporary Chicano Literary Criticism 260
Index 275
Contributors 287