Graciela Limón's Hummingbird and Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands: Aztec Elements in Chicana Literature

Bc. Beata Kozerová

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Diplomová práce se zaměřuje na problematiku Chicanské kultury v USA a blíže zkoumá prvky Aztécké kultury, které se objevují v literárních dílech Chicanských autorek. Jedná se o dílo Glorie Anzaldúové - Borderlands/La Frontera: The New mestiza a Graciely Limónové - Song of Hummingbird. Pomocí literární analýzy jsem objevila pět základních Aztéckých kulturních prvků, jsou to: La Malinche, La Llorona, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Nepantla a Aztlán. Tyto prvky, stejně jako Chicanská kultura jsou kulturně velmi různorodé a mají hybridní povahu.

Abstract:

My thesis develops the theme of cultural influences and of their structure and meaning. Although the Chican@ culture is not widely known yet (as U.S. ethnic minorities are generally considered slowly assimilating), it represents a model of cultural hybridity, a result of post-colonial forces in the contemporary U.S. Southwest. The main objective of the thesis is to trace the Aztec cultural elements in Chicana literature and interpret their significance. I develop here the Aztec cultural roots of particular concepts taken out from the Chican@ culture and its literature. I examine them as powerful icons/myths, the meaning of which has been lately re-defined and re-constructed by Chicana writers in an attempt to create new paradigms/metaphors that would provide Chicanas with more freedom and power. I have chosen two works of two Chicanas as a field of my analysis, for I believe these works are sufficiently representative of the Aztec cultural elements and the ways in which they have been recently re-formed and re-freshed. Graciela Limón’s Song of Hummingbird takes a Chicana view of the history of the Spanish Conquest and the life in Tenochtitlán before it. By means of comparison and self-identification of the protagonist with the three female icons under discussion, namely La Malinche, La Llorona and La Virgen de Guadalupe, Limón presents a new view of these icons, tries to humanize them and open the way for them to be endowed with new meanings. Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza re-reads history and traces its consequences for the contemporary face of the Chican@ culture. She introduces several new concepts, including “mestiza consciousness,” “borderland” and “Coatlicue State,” which are partly of Aztec origins. These concepts serve Anzaldúa as dynamic tools in the process of creating a new Chicana/mestiza identity. This action is to be understood as one of the recent Chicana literary endeavours to broaden the cultural role-model load of Chicanas; Rebolledo explains why there is such a need: If [...] the existing mythology (as defined by patriarchy) is unable to fulfil the increasing demand for women, as active, energetic, and positive figures, then women writers may choose myths and archetypes, historical and cultural heroines, that are different from the traditional ones. They may create new role models for themselves or choose existing models but imbue them with different [...] traits and characteristics. (49) This renders what Limón and Anzaldúa do in their writings; they use the Aztec cultural elements that prevail in the Chican@ culture and change them for the benefit of Chicanas. Since the Chican@ culture is hybrid, its Aztec cultural elements are in such relationship to Spanish/Christian ones that a diversified multilayered culture comes to view, the particular elements of which cannot be fully separated to be analyzed because their power and meaning have their strength in their multiplicity. Therefore, I refer at times to Spanish/Christian aspects of the icons under the analysis too. The icons of my focus are the three intermingling mythical female figures La Malinche, La Llorona, La Virgen de Guadalupe, further, the philosophical concept of Nepantla, which corresponds with Anzaldúa’s concept of “borderlands” (and “mestiza consciousness”), and the Aztec mythical place of origin, the contemporary Chican@ unifying symbol, Aztlán. I have divided the thesis into four parts. The first introduces the term “Chicano” and discriminates its etymological, cultural, historical and political characteristics, describing shortly what it actually is to be a Chican@ and how its definition is hybrid, like the culture itself. In order to develop a full understanding of the Aztec cultural influence on the Chican@s, the second part of my thesis brings in a historical overview, showing what the Aztec cultural structure looked like and what were its main advances/drawbacks. The

Abstract:

following two parts of my thesis are the demonstration and analysis of the Aztec cultural codes present in Song of Hummingbird and Borderlands. I conclude the work with the concept of Aztlán as a symbol connecting the Chican@ and the Aztec culture and opening the future for further exploration. Aztlán bears an almost mythical denotation for contemporary Chican@s, as the place and character of their future unison and perhaps even independence on the one hand, or as a philosophical concept to be further developed and drawn from, on the other.

Keywords

Chicano culture, Chicana literature, Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera, The New Mestiza, Graciela Limón, Song of Hummingbird, cultural hybridity, Aztlán, La Malinche, La Llorona, La Virgen de Guadalupe

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 11. 6. 2007

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 11. 6. 2007
• Supervisor: Mgr. et Mgr. Kateřina Prajznerová, M.A.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Master programme / field:
Philology / English Language and Literature