Course Description
Summary
What does it mean to be American in a country that once belonged to your ancestors? 35 million Mexicans live in the United States, yet their own stories have been historically underrepresented in both literature and academia in comparison to other Hispanic groups. This course will read and discuss the Mexican-American experience as its evolved through various labels – Latino, Hispanic, Chicano – and how that dynamic has been affected by interaction with other closely related ethnic groups. We’ll explore code switching, integrating Spanish into English texts, and what direction Mexican-American literature is heading in. Authors include Maria Ruiz de Burton, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Sandra Cisneros, Dagoberto Gilb, and Manuel Gonzales, among others.
