“Quinceañera (Traditional Fifteenth Birthday Celebration for Girls)” (2021) by Carmen Lomas Garza
“Write with your eyes like painters, with your ears like musicians, with your feet like dancers. You are the truthsayer with quill and torch. Write with your tongues of fire. Don’t let the pen banish you from yourself. Don’t let the ink coagulate in your pens. Don’t let the censor snuff out the spark, nor the gags muffle your voice. Put your shit on the paper.”
– Gloria Anzaldúa, “Speaking In Tongues: A Letter To 3rd World Women Writers” in This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
Instructor: Dr. Lizbeth De La Cruz Santana (she/her/hers)
Office: 4-284 (VC)
Office Hours: Wednesday 4:00 PM – 5 PM, Friday 2:00 PM – 3 PM and by appointment
Email: [email protected]
*selection of course syllabus*
Course Description
This course addresses Latinas’ social and economic conditions in the United States. We will discuss questions of gender and sexuality, language, politics, labor relations, family relationships, literary and artistic expression, and the construction of identities as they manifest themselves in the experiences of contemporary Mexican-American/Chicana women.
Drawing on an interdisciplinary survey of Mexican-American/Chicana representation in the 20th and 21st centuries, we will study the struggles of intersectional feminisms of color, movement organizing, and social justice. We will explore how Mexican-American/Chicanas, including those of Mexican, Central American, South American, and Caribbean origins, currently living in the U.S. that were either born here or migrated from another country, create knowledge through the art of testimonios (a life-history narrative). Students will have opportunities to produce creative works to analyze the complex politics of race, class, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and other categories of power in the lives of women of color in the United States.
Prerequisite: ANT 1001, HIS 3070, HIS 3075, HSP 1000, HSP 1003, HSP 1004, LTS 1000, LTS 1003, LTS 1004 OR SOC 1005.
Required Textbooks
Chola Salvation (2021) by Estella Gonzalez(available online via the Baruch Library and the Bearcat Bookstore)
Grade Breakdown
- Class participation 15%
- Discussion questions (5) 15% – Chola Salvation (2021)
- Group presentation 15% – Chola Salvation (2021)
- Midterm 35% – Corrido Project
- Final 20% – Testimonio Creative Project
Course Schedule
- Week 1 – Introduction to Course
- Week 2 – Precursors: Women that Defy the Patriarchy
- Week 3 – In Between Guadalupe and Malinche & Transnational Narratives
- Week 4 – Early Forms of Narrative Song in Chicana/o Culture
- Week 5 – Corrido Workshop
- Week 6 – Corrido Workshop
- Week 7 – Group Work on Corrido
- Week 8 – Deportation of Mexican-Americans
- Week 9 – The Zoot Suit Riots & Los/Las Pachucos/as
- Week 10 – Los Pachucos y la Pachuca
- Week 11 – Farmworker Rights & Alliance Building Across Color Lines
- Week 12 – Contemporary Latina Poetry
- Week 13 – Mujeres who Love Women: Lesbianism and Revolution
- Week 14 – Criminalization, Incarceration & Deportation of Latinas in the US
- Week 15 – Corrido Workshop & Creative Project Preparations
- Week 16 – Latina Stories Told Through Song
- Final Creative Project Due Wednesday, December 20 at 5:30 PM.
Engage with student final projects: CLICK HERE
Read more about the creative projects here.
© 2023. The work included in this site is openly licensed via CC BY-NC-ND.