Chicana Sexuality and Gender: Cultural Refiguring in Literature, Oral History, and Art

In chapter two, the author uses the female god Coyolxauhqui in the Mexico history to start the chapter: “For Gloria Anzaldúa, Coyolxauhqui is a metaphor informing her struggle to rewrite the myths and fictions that have been used against women and people of color ‘‘to control, regulate and manipulate us. The Mexica’s symbolic dismemberment of Coyolxauhqui suggests patriarchal and colonial violence against women’s bodies and so ke a person and divide her up, you disempower her. She’s no longer a threat.” The Coyolxauhqui is a very familiar character to me, as I learned from the art history course, the Coyolxauhqui is a very important character in the Mexican history, at the time she was born, her brother wanted to kill Coyolxauhqui and her mother before she was born, but her brother was late. Coyolxauhqui killed her brother when she just came out and she makes his brother as a stone at the bottom of the pyramid. 

In chapter five, author talks about why oral narratives, not the first status. There are many reasons to get this result. Color, Gender, and language could all be part of the reason: “Likewise, women’s experiences and stories were devalued, even when women began to write and publish. In these ways, oral narratives are multiply marginalized by their status as oral; by association with women, even more so by women of color; and by the language in which they are spoken if not Standard English, for example, Spanish, black English, or Spanish and English code-switching or vernacular. Oral and life histories continue to be relegated to the sidelines, even though, like folklore, they are considered to be the inspiration for much creative and nonfiction writing.” In this text, the author indicates that the oral narratives are not as valuable as middle-class written books or papers simply because of their status in the society.