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Floating Borderlands: Chicanas and Mexicanas Moving Knowledge in the Borderlands Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Holm, Andrea Hernandez Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 09/10/2021 12:39:07 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/620872 1 FLOATING BORDERLANDS: CHICANAS AND MEXICANAS MOVING KNOWLEDGE IN THE BORDERLANDS by Andrea Hernández Holm __________________________ Copyright © Andrea Hernández Holm 2016 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF MEXICAN AMERICAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2016 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Dissertation Committee, we certify that we have read the dissertation prepared by Andrea Hernández Holm, titled “Floating Borderlands: Chicanas and Mexicanas Moving Knowledge in the Borderlands” and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. __________________________________________________________Date: May 31, 2016 Lydia Otero __________________________________________________________ Date: May 31, 2016 Patrisia Gonzales __________________________________________________________Date: May 31, 2016 Roberto Rodriguez __________________________________________________________Date: May 31, 2016 Raquel Rubio Goldsmith Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate’s submission of the final copies of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. ________________________________________________ Date: May 31, 2016 Dissertation Director: Lydia Otero 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Andrea Hernández Holm 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was born with the help of many people. I thank the Department of Mexican American Studies at the University of Arizona and its faculty members, especially thankful to my advisor, Dr. Lydia Otero, and my committee members: Dr. Patrisia Gonzales, Dr. Roberto Rodriguez, and Prof. Raquel Rubio-Goldsmith. I am also grateful to Dr. Maria Teresa Velez, who always remembered and encouraged me. All believed in me and my work, even when I doubted myself. My deepest and humble thanks to the elders and the women of the Tarango family-- my tias Olivia, Elidia, Virginia, Carolina, and Anita-- for the knowledge they share with me. Thank you to my Tarango cousins Lupe Rodriguez, Martha T. Brumley, and Andy Aguilar who introduced me to the genealogical archives and have shared their labor with me. Thank you to my mom, Alicia M. Hernández, who keeps telling me stories and let me share them here. Thank you to Elena Diaz Björkquist for many things. Beyond sharing her story with me, it was she and the writing group, Sowing the Seeds of Tucson, that reminded me that stories never give up on storytellers. I am grateful to my colegas, Yesenia Andrade and Ceci Lewis, who have inspired me with their own academic foresight, and lifted me up to remind me that we cannot do good work without love and friendship. 5 I am blessed with the support of my families—those by blood, marriage, and making. Their encouragement has fueled me forward and reminded me that our stories are rich, dynamic, and worth sharing with the world. Thank you to my parents, Alicia M. Hernández and Eduardo V. Hernández, and Ina Holm and Tom Holm, who have loved me unconditionally. Thank you to my sons, Ezikiel Manuel Hernández Holm and Joaquin Emiliano Hernández Holm, whom I love unconditionally. Finally, I am grateful to my husband, Garett Holm, who, even when he was tired of sharing space with all my ancestors, pushed me to keep calling them forward and keep learning what they had to share. He understood the importance and never let me stop. I don’t know what I would do without him. My heart is full. 6 DEDICATION For the Mexicanas who came before me, and those that come after. Somos fuertes 7 CONTENTS ABSTRACT.....………………………………………………………………………………….. 8 CHAPTER 1: BIRTH ..................................................................................................................... 9 CHAPTER 2: BRAIDING KNOWLEDGE…………….……………………………………….42 CHAPTER 3: WAYS OF UNBORDERING BORDERS.........………………………………...94 CHAPTER 4: STORYING LANDSCAPES .............................................................................. 114 CHAPTER 5: REMEMBERING THE RAIN ............................................................................ 123 CHAPTER 6: KNOWLEDGE BANNED IN THE BORDERLANDS.................…………….141 CHAPTER 7: LIVING IN THE BORDERLANDS ................................................................... 164 CHAPTER 8: THIS IS WHAT I LEARN...................................................................................184 APPENDIX A: “RECOVERING THE RAIN” .......................................................................... 193 APPENDIX B: “WRITING FROM THE HEART: HISTORIA OF A BANNED BOOK” ...... 214 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………230 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES: TABLE 1: COMPONENTS OF THE FLOATING BORDERLANDS……………………….. 97 FIGURE 1: STORY AT THE CENTER OF FLOATING BORDERLANDS………………… 98 FIGURE 2: LENSES OF FLOATING BORDERLANDS……………………………………...99 FIGURE 3: TARANGO FAMILY MAP………………………………………………………105 8 ABSTRACT As intolerance against Mexican Americans and Mexican migrants persists in the United States-- apparent in the passage of Arizona State Bill 1070, Arizona House Bill 2281, and multiple English-only laws-- Chicanas and Mexicanas continue to resist by sustaining relationships and knowledge through storytelling. This dissertation employs a floating borderlands framework to explore how Chicanas and Mexicanas in the United States-Mexico borderlands use storytelling in oral and written traditions to keep cultural and regional knowledge. Floating borderlands is an interdisciplinary framework that reveals survivance, that is, survival as an act of resistance, through cultural maintenance, agency, and creativity in lived experiences. Drawing upon concepts and research from disciplines that include Mexican American Studies, American Indian Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Education, floating borderlands reveals how storytelling helps Chicanas and Mexicanas maintain an understanding of home and homelands that facilitates resistance to obstacles such as racial and gender discrimination and challenges to their right to be in these spaces. This dissertation acknowledges multiple forms of knowledge keeping by Chicanas and Mexicanas throughout the last two centuries; recognizes intersectionality; and complicates or creates multiple layers in narratives of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. This project is directly informed by narratives of Chicana and Mexicana life in the borderlands. It centers oral and written traditions, including my original poetry. 9 Key words: Chicanas, Mexicanas, border, borderlands, floating borderlands, survivance, oral traditions, written traditions, home, homelands, migration, identity, cultural maintenance, poetry, story CHAPTER 1: BIRTH I did not swim into the world in a river of amniotic fluid but in a steady stream of stories sustained by mi abuelita, mi mama, y mis tias. They nourished me with their words, tales of grandmothers passed, places loved, and times gone by. On Sunday afternoons we crowded into Abuelita's room, where I curled in a dark corner, quiet while these women, my women, pulled memories from the old leather petaquilla. Each would take a corner and together, unfold stories like quilts-- spread them out and shake them-- until the dust and wrinkles were gone. They laid them over me then, layered one memory upon another until I lay under the blanket of our history, warm and content in its embrace. When the petaquilla was empty, the words spread about us like drifts and dunes near the sea. And it was these women who listened for my breathing and with great ease, 10 brought me to light.1 A deep sense of belonging, and that awareness of belonging, is a consciousness that remains with a person regardless of how far they travel. The poem above captures how storytelling among the women in her Mexican family has contributed greatly to the poet’s consciousness. The stories of her female relatives anchors the poet to identity, community, and place. This dissertation employs an interdisciplinary lens to explore how and why Chicanas and Mexicanas have used storytelling in such oral and written traditions to maintain cultural and regional knowledge that helps to sustain them and their families as they move throughout the U.S.-Mexico