Christina García Lopez

The purpose of this course is to examine the various experiences, perspectives, and expressions of Chicanas in the United States. This involves examining the meaning and history of the term, "Chicana" as it was applied to and incorporated by Mexican American women during the Chicano Movement in areas of the Southwest U.S., such as Texas and California. We will also explore what it means to be Chicana in the United States today. The course will begin with a historical overview of Mexican American women's experiences in the U.S., including the emergence of Chicana feminism. We will discuss central concepts of Chicana feminism and attempt to understand how those concepts link to everyday lived experiences. Specifically, the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, and class will be key as we discuss issues that have been significant in the experiences and self-identification of Chicanas, such as: family, gender, sexuality, religion/spirituality, education, language, labor, and political engagement. We will be engaging in interdisciplinary analysis not only concerning cultural traditions, values, belief systems, and symbols but also in relation to the expressive culture of Chicanas, including folk and religious practices, literature and poetry, the visual arts, and music. Finally, we will examine media representations of Chicanas through critical analyses of film and television portrayals.

Description

The purpose of this course is to examine the various ways in which Mexican Americans have encountered and negotiated religion and spirituality in the United States. Icons such as the Virgen de Guadalupe, domestic traditions such as the use of home altars, and the folk healing of curanderismo are all imbedded within Mexican American cultural life. How have cultural workers such as creative writers, visual artists, and scholars understood the Mexican American relationship to religion and spirituality? In particular, how have religious and spiritual understandings been negotiated, transformed, and re-made in response to the political and cultural ‘renaissance’ emerging from the Chicano Movement (1960s-1970s) and the development of Chicana feminism (in 1970s and 1980s)? This class will evaluate these questions with emphasis upon issues such as colonization and conquest, gender and sexuality, institutional and folk practices, material culture and tradition, and cultural and religious syncretism.

Requirements

2 Essays                                     30% (15% each)

Research Project                          25%

Group Project                              15%

Fieldwork write-up                       10%

Participation                                10%

Attendance                                  10%

Possible Texts

A course reader is required for this class. Course reader will contain excerpts from scholarly research, case-studies, poetry, plays, memoirs, short stories, & visual arts. Excerpt selections may include but are not limited to:

Luis de Leon, La Llorona’s Children: Religion, Life, and Death in the U.S. Mexico Borderlands

Mexican American Religions: Spirituality, Activism, and Culture, eds. Gastón Espinosa & Mario T. García

Laura Pérez, Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities

Marie Romero Cash, Lucy Lippard, Living Shrines: Home Altars of New Mexico

Kay Turner, Beautiful Necessity: The Art and Meaning of Women’s Altars

Robert T. Trotter II & Juan Chavirra, Curanderismo: Mexican American Folk Healing

Pilgrimage to Chimayo: Contemporary Portrait of a Living Tradition, eds. Enrique R. Lamadrid & Sam Howarth

Horizons of the Sacred: Mexican Tradition in U.S. Catholicism, ed. Timothy Matovina & Gary Riebe-Estrella

David A. Badillo, Latinos and the New Immigrant Church

Miguel Leon-Portillo, Aztec Thought & Culture: A Study of the Ancient Nahuatl Mind

Jeanette Rodriguez, Our Lady of Guadalupe: Faith and Empowerment among Mexican American Women

La diosa de las Américas/Goddess of the Americas: Writings on the Virgin of Guadalupe, ed. Ana Castillo

Ana Castillo, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma

Luis Valdez, Pensamiento Serpentino

Cherrie Moraga, The Hungry Woman

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

Sandra Cisneros, Woman Hollering Creek

Oscar Casares, Brownsville

Tomas Rivera, Y no se lo tragó la tierra

Richard Rodriguez, Hunger of Memory

Flag(s): Writing

MAS 319/WGS 301/SOC 308D/AMS 315
— Ethnicity & Gender: La Chicana—

Spring 2010                                  Instructor: Christina Garcia
Unique: 35865/48355/46290/29732            Office hrs: M/W, 2-3:30 (by appt)
M/W, 3:30-5 pm                    WMB 5.116, phone: 232-1958
CBA 4.344                                 tinag47@mail.utexas.edu
 

COURSE DESCRIPTION
The purpose of this course is to examine the various experiences, perspectives, and expressions of Chicanas in the United States. This involves examining the meaning and history of the term, "Chicana" as it was applied to and incorporated by Mexican American women during the Chicano Movement in areas of the Southwest U.S., such as Texas and California. We will also explore what it means to be Chicana in the United States today. The course will begin with a historical overview of Mexican American women's experiences in the U.S., including the emergence of Chicana feminism. We will discuss central concepts of Chicana feminism and attempt to understand how those concepts link to everyday lived experiences. Specifically, the relationship between gender, race/ethnicity, and class will be key as we discuss issues that have been significant in the experiences and self-identification of Chicanas, such as: family, gender, sexuality, religion/spirituality, education, language, labor, and political engagement. We will be engaging in interdisciplinary analysis not only concerning cultural traditions, values, belief systems, and symbols but also in relation to the expressive culture of Chicanas, including folk and religious practices, literature and poetry, the visual arts, and music. Finally, we will examine media representations of Chicanas through critical analyses of film. By the end of this course, it is my hope that you will not only be more critical readers and thinkers, but that you will also be able to apply themes and elements from the readings and discussions to your understanding of your own experiences.