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Several years ago, I published a paper on "The Chicana in the City as Seen in Her Literature."(1) There were two principal conclusions in that study that would be relevant in studying Chicana cultural identity: first, that the Chicana as seen in her literature appeared to perceive herself as a marginal figure in her world; and second, that even the briefest examination of literature about or by contemporary Chicanas in an urban setting revealed a growing self-awareness on the part of Chicanas. My earlier work focused especially on the Chicana's ironic perception of herself and her reality or space within the macho (male-dominated) Chicano culture. The present study seeks to confirm that there continues to be an expression of cultural identity to be found in specific Chicana literary texts dealing with the barrio and the city.
Elizabeth Ordonez addresses the issue of cultural identity from the perspective of discourse analysis. In her study "The Concept of Cultural Identity in Chicana Poetry," she says, for example:
The woman writer--and the Chicana is no exception--in this way forges what has been named a "double-voiced discourse"; she makes the invisible visible, gives voice to the muted.(2)
This discourse, in dealing with the barrio or city, repeatedly bespeaks an "I love you/I hate you" paradigm, which suggests the Chicana is often in a problematic, conflictive, ironic relationship to her space. Charles Glicksberg gives the following definition, which I still find most appropriate in discussing irony in Chicana literature: "The heart of irony is to be found in a contradiction which cannot be resolved and which cannot be endured and yet which is somehow lived."(3) It would appear that this ironic predicament is inherent in being a Chicana feminist and a writer, if we study selected works of several contemporary Chicana poets. The texts selected will reflect this ironic predicament (I love you/I hate you) and will provide examples of how humor (or irony) enables the Chicana to endure, as she perceives her existential dilemma. Her texts may represent individual, challenging, revolutionary acts, in which the very act of writing can be an act of faith itself.
Certainly, the barrio and the city have given birth to very distinct cultural/individual images in contemporary Chicana writing since the 1970s. Most Chicana...