"Saddling La Gringa" Recent Titles in Contributions in Women's Studies Contemporary Irish Women Poets: Some Male Perspectives Alexander G. Gonzalez Queer Poetics: Five Modernist Women Writers Mary E. Galvin White Women Writing White: H.D., Elizabeth Bishop, Sylvia Plath, and Whiteness Renee R. Curry The Foreign Woman in British Literature: Exotics, Aliens, and Outsiders Marilyn Demarest Button and Toni Reed, editors Embracing Space: Spatial Metaphors in Feminist Discourse Kerstin W. Shands On Top of the World: Women's Political Leadership in Scandinavia and Beyond Bruce O. Solheim Victorian London's Middle-Class Housewife: What She Did All Day Yaffa Claire Draznin Connecting Links: The British and American Woman Suffrage Movements, 1900-1914 Patricia Greenwood Harrison Female Journeys: Autobiographical Expressions by French and Italian Women Claire Marrone Excluded from Suffrage History: Matilda Joslyn Gage, Nineteenth-Century American Feminist Leila R. Brammer The Artist as Outsider in the Novels of Toni Morrison and Virginia Woolf Lisa Williams (Out)Classed Women: Contemporary Chicana Writers on Inequitable Gendered Power Relations Phillipa Kafka "Saddling La Gringa" Gatekeeping in Literature by Contemporary Latina Writers Phillipa Kafka Contributions in Women's Studies, Number 183 GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kafka, Phillipa, 1933- "Saddling la gringa" : gatekeeping in literature by contemporary Latina writers / Phillipa Kafka. p. cm.—(Contributions in women's studies, ISSN 0147-104X ; no. 183) Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Judith Ortiz Cofer—Cristina Garcia—Julia Alvarez—Rosario Ferre— Magali Garcia Ramis. ISBN 0-313-31122-6 (alk. paper) 1. American fiction—HispanicAmerican authors—History and criticism. 2. American fiction—Women authors—History and criticism. 3. Women and literature—United States—History—20th century. 4. HispanicAmerican women in literature. 5. Sex role in literature. 6. Ethnic identity in literature. 7. Women in literature. 8. Patriarchy in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PS153.H56 K34 2000 813,.5099287,08968—dc21 00-023957 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2000 by Phillipa Kafka All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 00-023957 ISBN: 0-313-31122-6 ISSN: 0147-104X First published in 2000 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 99 8 7 6 5 4 3 21 To Maria Del Carmen Rodriguez Angela Lopez Annette Lopez Maria Obondo Maria Perez Myriam Quinones Jose Adames For The Way We Were This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface ix Introduction: Major Elements in the Works of Latina Writers xvii 1. Judith Ortiz Cofer, Silent Dancing 1 2. Cristina Garcia, Dreaming in Cuban 57 3. Julia Alvarez, How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents 95 4. Rosario Ferre, The Youngest Doll and Other Stories 113 5. Magali Garcia Ramis, Happy Days, Uncle Sergio 121 Afterword 137 Bibliography 143 Index 151 This page intentionally left blank Preface DEFINITIONS OF THE TERM LATINA When I refer to Latinas, I apply the term to women whose cultural origins and histories are diverse, whose cultural diversity is obvious across nationalities, and to women who differ in their educational acquirements, their abilities to speak Spanish, and class rankings (Horno-Delgado et al. 1989a, 8). All the same, their discourse is "distinguishable" because it is "culturally unified" (Horno-Delgado etal. 1989a, 6, 11). Asuncion Horno-Delgado et al. expand the term Latinas to include women who served as "storytellers or as participants in oral histories, took part in the Civil Rights movement," the Chicano La Raza movement, the Gay liberation movement, "or the progressive and revolutionary movements of Latin America." Under their definition of Latinas, women whose "views have been informed by the Women's Movements of the U.S. and Latin America" (Horno-Delgado et al. 1989a, 8-9) were also included. Reaching out even further, the term Latina is expanded to include writers from other than Mexican and Puerto Rican cultures who "form alliances with, and draw on, traditions from those groups established with a longer history, that is, Chicanas and Puertorriquenas.... [I]t is within that alliance that we can begin to speak of a Latina literature" (Horno-Delgado et al. 1989a, 10). However, unlike Horno-Delgado and her colleagues, I do not expand the definition of Latina writing to include the work of Chicanas or of women "from other groups who identify with [Latinas] and their struggle" (1989a, 11). Further, Vicki Ruiz would have the term Latina also include "someone of Latin American birth or heritage." Bernardo M. Ferdman and Angelica C. Cortes agree on the basis of commonalities "with the peoples and cultures of Latin America," as well as a blending "of indigenous, African, and European influences" (1995, 273).