EMPLEADAS" IN THE U.S.A.: LATINA DOMESTIC WORKERS NEGOTIATING POWER AMONG BOUNDARIES OF RACE, CLASS AND GENDER (original) (raw)

Latina Lives, Latina Narratives

2021

The inf luential essays collected here are classics-often cited, read, and assigned in classes on the histories of women, labor, ethnicity, and methodology. They map the abundant intellectual and professional contributions of Vicki Ruiz, who has done so much to place Latinas in the mainstream of U.S. history. By bringing together the cannery workers, adolescents, labor organizers and others she has studied, this collection honors the lasting significance of both Professor Ruiz and her historical subjects."

Undocumented Latinx life-writing: refusing worth and meritocracy

Prose Studies, 2020

This article analyzes undocumented Latinx nonfiction lifewriting as creative resistance to dehumanization and as a vehicle for new conceptions of Latinx subjectivities and experiences. It investigates how The Undocumented Americans (2020) by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio and Undocumented: A Dominican Boy's Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League (2016) by Dan-el Padilla Peralta counter the way that undocumented individuals are treated as disposable and invite audiences to imagine new social realities. Drawing on Daniel Solorzano and Dolores Delgado Bernal's work (2001), this article analyzes the discursive expression of transformational resistance to shape social subjects by exposing the fallacies of meritocracy and the racialized, systemic nature of oppressions. Both Cornejo Villavicencio and Padilla Peralta combat the naturalization migrant suffering as inevitable and forge a politics of possibility. Due to their relative privilege, these authors act as surrogates to publicize and justify everyday undocumented disobedience that otherwise would not be shared for fear of deportation.

Latin American Gender Studies in the Twenty-First Century

Comparative Critical Studies, 2009

In her much cited 1972 poem, 'Meditación en el umbral', Mexican writer Rosario Castellanos captures vividly and unforgettably the sense of potentiality and frustration that might be said to define the early days of second generation women's rights and cultural work: the threshold exists, she can imagine crossing it, but cannot yet see what is on the other side: Debe de haber otro modo que no se llame Safo Ni Mesalina ni María Egipciaca Ni Magdalena ni Clemencia Isaura. Otro modo de ser humano y libre Otro modo de ser. 1 There must be another way that is not named Sappho Nor Mesalina nor María Egipciaca Nor Magdalena nor Clemencia Isaura. Another way to be human and free. Another way to be.

To the Margins and Back: The High Cost of Being Latina in 'America'

Journal of Latinos and Education, 2004

This "critical personal narrative" is aimed at deconstructing the imposed definition of Hispanic-Latino(a) identity to unveil its typecasting and stereotypes, although reconstructing it based on shared language, values, and experiences despite our pan-ethnic characteristics. Based on a deep and systematic reflection on my own experience as immigrant from Latin America and the subsequent exclusions and awakenings, I have identified at least 7 characteristics of my identity as Latina, which make me vulnerable for discrimination and typecasting. I call them my index of vulnerability. I argue that the value of Latino(a) personal narratives is to document unfair treatment and misrepresentation while building unity and cultural identity among Latinos(as).

Living in Two Worlds: Torn Identities and Gender Expectations of Latinas in the United States

Latino immigrants in the United States are currently living in a bicultural sphere that pulls them in two different directions. Their success in this affluent country is challenged by the dual expectations of Latino culture on one hand and Western culture on the other. These expectations create a tear in the identities of newer generation immigrant Latinos, as they must wrestle between their culture of origin and acculturation to life in the United States. Latinas face additional identity tears as a result of being women in both the Latino and Western world. They must adhere to the Latino cultural expectations of the "female role," while simultaneously living up to contradictory expectations in the Western world. Thus, new generations of Latinas in the United States have additional strains placed on their already torn identities.