| Kommentar |
The Mexican presence in the United States goes back to at least the end of the war between the U.S. and Mexico in 1848, when the U.S.A. acquired from Mexico the territories that now constitute the Southwest of the United States. Oral and written literary traditions by individuals of Mexican descent were generally excluded from the canon of American literature for at least a century. Only with José Antonio Villarreal’s Pocho (1959) and with the Chicano Movement that started in the late 1960s did Mexican American literature gain wider recognition. It developed from a literature centered on oppression and resistance to an expression of ethnic pride and, since the 1980s, into an exploration of diverse arenas from feminism to border consciousness and from the situation of farmworkers to gang culture. Students are asked to purchase the following books:
Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima (1972), Warner Books, 978-0446675369,
Rolando Hinojosa, The Valley/Estampas del valle (1983/1973), Arte Público Press, 978-1558857872,
Ana Castillo, The Guardians (2007), Random House, 978-0812975710.
A reader with additional texts will be available from the copy shop at Reckhammerweg 4. First class meeting: October 27, 2016. |
