Date of Award

Spring 4-26-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

English

First Advisor

Matthew Suazo

Abstract

My thesis aims to embody the hybridity of the theory, poetics, and women of the U.S. Borderlands in the close reading of Kali Fajardo-Anstine’s short story collection Sabrina and Corina (2019), Sandra Cisneros’ memoir A House of My Own (2015) and my own creative productions as they converse and are inspired by foundational Chicana texts such as Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera (1989) and her anthology with Cherríe Moraga This Bridge Called My Back (1981). I seek to embody the hybridity of the literary field in the very structure of my thesis by crossing and moving my writing across and between genres such as literary analysis, essay and poetry. Specifically in my creation of the “floating woman” figure, I use this embodiment of transtemporal consciousness as a link from the feminist theory of Chicana writers such as Gloria Anzaldúa, Cherríe Moraga, and Norma Alarcón to the battered bodies of the contemporary Borderlands. I seek to closely read the spiraling effects of migration as they surface in the generational trauma and systemic violence as exerted on the women of Fajardo-Anstine’s stories. I bridge the conversation of a fictionalized Borderland in chapter one and my own creative productions in chapter three with an exploratory essay of Sandra Cisneros’ memoir as it exemplifies and bends the form of contemporary Chicana autobiography. Finally, I hope to illuminate the reality of the doubled consciousness in Chicana identities by crafting my own poetic and photographic documentation of my Chicagoan Borderland and the cultural dichotomies experienced by my immigrant family in homesickness, memory and grief.

Rights Statement

All rights reserved. This copy is provided to the Kenyon Community solely for individual academic use. For any other use, please contact the copyright holder for permission.

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