Show and Tell: Identity as Performance in U.S. Latina/o Fiction

by Karen Christian

Overview

What makes John Rechy a Chicano writer? To be Latino, must writing have a touch of "magical realism"? Can one talk of U.S. Latina/o identity, considering the diversity of the Latina/o experience?

Through the analysis of nine recent Latino/a novels, Karen Christian answers these and other questions, thereby adding a fresh, bold voice to the anti-essentialist debate surrounding ethnic and gender identity. Christian melds the theory of "performativity" with the latest scholarship on ethnicity and ethnic literature to create a framework for viewing identity as a continuous process that cannot be reduced to static categories. Through their narrative "performances," U.S. Latina/o writers and their characters move among communities and identities in an ongoing challenge to the notion of Latina/o essence.

This study is also among the first to examine trends across the spectrum of cultures represented in U.S. Latina/o literature—from Chicano to Cuban to Puerto Rican to Dominican.

Show and Tell is essential for any serious student of Latina/o literature and identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826318312
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	11/01/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	201
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)
Lexile:	1460L (what's this?)

About the Author

Karen S. Christian is vice president of Kareli Authors, Inc.

Editorial Reviews

Christian [adds] a fresh, bold voice to the anti-essentialist debate surrounding ethnic and gender identity. . . . This study is also among the first to examine trends across the spectrum of cultures represented in U.S. Latina/o literature . . .

Christian convincingly challenges the notion of a homogenous Latina/o ethnic identity. . . . an excellent example of her ability to adapt critical theory to a sophisticated analysis of contemporary Latina/o literature.

Christian is persuasive and maneuvers through a great deal of philosophical and theoretical literature with ease.

Christian Ýadds¨ a fresh, bold voice to the anti-essentialist debate surrounding ethnic and gender identity. . . . This study is also among the first to examine trends across the spectrum of cultures represented in U.S. Latina/o literature . . .

"Christian convincingly challenges the notion of a homogenous Latina/o ethnic identity. . . . an excellent example of her ability to adapt critical theory to a sophisticated analysis of contemporary Latina/o literature."

From the Publisher