View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of New Mexico University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Spanish and Portuguese ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 6-24-2015 THE CHOLA LOCA IN LANDSCAPES OF STRUGGLE: BREAKING SILENCE IN THE WORKS OF HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES AND YXTA MAYA MURRAY Lorena Galván Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/span_etds Recommended Citation Galván, Lorena. "THE CHOLA LOCA IN LANDSCAPES OF STRUGGLE: BREAKING SILENCE IN THE WORKS OF HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES AND YXTA MAYA MURRAY." (2015). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/span_etds/16 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spanish and Portuguese ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lorena Galván Candidate Spanish and Portuguese Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Tey Diana Rebolledo, Co-Chairperson Dr. Enrique Lamadrid, Co-Chairperson Dr. Miguel López Dr. Bárbara Reyes i THE CHOLA LOCA IN LANDSCAPES OF STRUGGLE: BREAKING SILENCE IN THE WORKS OF HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES AND YXTA MAYA MURRAY BY LORENA GALVÁN B.A., Spanish, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 2004 M.A., Spanish, Southwest Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 2006 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Spanish and Portuguese The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico May 2015 ii © 2015, Lorena Galván iii DEDICATION To my daughters Mari and Brianna Valenzuela, Emma Liliana Miramontes, Estrella Gallegos, Alexis and Areli Miramontes Dedicated to all living La Vida Loca iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This study owes its completion almost entirely to the support of my amazing family who touch my life everyday. Foremost, I wish to thank my mother and father, Tirza and Arturo Galván, my sister Julie and my wonderful husband Raúl Miramontes. Most of all, I would like to thank my daughters Mari and Brianna for their patient support and for always helping me keep academia in perspective. I wish to acknowledge the contributions and continuous support offered by my dissertation committee. Professors Enrique Lamadrid, Bárbara Reyes, and Miguel López have encouraged me throughout the writing of this dissertation. My deepest gratitude goes to my doctoral advisor and co-chair Professor Tey Diana Rebolledo who has been an exceptional mentor. Her words and actions provided me with inspiration during difficult times and I owe much of my present success to her persistent care and commitment. Special thanks are due to the following friends and colleges: Elena Avilés and Pedro Torres who have supported all my endeavors during the past ten years, encouraging perseverance in spite of the many and varied obstacles that emerged throughout the course of our graduate studies. All the individuals named here have believed in my abilities and most have an idea as to the incredible odds I have overcome in acquiring a doctoral degree. I am deeply grateful for their love and support. v THE CHOLA LOCA IN LANDSCAPES OF STRUGGLE: BREAKING SILENCE IN THE WORKS OF HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES AND YXTA MAYA MURRAY BY LORENA GALVÁN B.A., Spanish, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 2004 M.A., Spanish, Southwest Studies, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 2006 Ph.D., Spanish and Portuguese, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, 2015 ABSTRACT The struggle of reimagining and resituating once ignored or vilified female icons is an example of how Chicanas turn to the past to instill a new meaning to female archetypes. In breaking silence, Helena María Viramontes and Yxta Maya Murray found a way to make the Chola visible, and a voice from which she could speak about the concerns of women living la vida loca in urban landscapes. The analysis of Chicana representations, of the Chola and la vida loca thus offers a counter-narrative to the dominant narratives offered by Chicano texts but also to the rise of representations about Cholas/Cholos in dominant society toward the end of the 20th century. In this dissertation project I examine the written expressions of the Chola and the queer Vato by Chicana feminist writers to analyze how women utilize counter-narratives to express lived realities and to negotiate new understandings on issues of gender roles, identity vi and shifting social urban conditions. The analysis of how women offer alternative descriptions of the Chola as Malfloras and Locas, symbols of women gone bad and crazy, provides the context from which to study how women create alternative forms of expression through and by the appropriation of a tough male aesthetic to re-inscribe the Cholas as empowered women. The recuperation of the Chola’s sliced tongue and silent scream in women’s literary representation thus offers an alternative refiguring of the Chola figure as a speaking subject. This study also emphasizes how Chicana feminists recuperate and reinscribe the Chola to provide new interpretations of the Chola as an agent of resistance and opposition and to express what Yvonne Yarbro Bejarano terms “the reversal of an accepted image” (“The Lesbian Body,” 183). Feminist writers’ development of an emblem of resistance, as a strategic tool to code the Chola with new meaning proves to be “more complex than rejection, for such strategies both critique and derive power” from the reversal and repositioning of the Chola’s image (Yarbro Bejarano, 183). This study also reveals how, in flipping the meaning of the Chola’s, body as a silent object to speaking subject, Chicanas brought authority to the ways women use gender performance to re-frame the meaning of Malfloras and Locas. Additionally, by coding the Malflora figure to function like a geographical artifact that can be read by others does more than inform readers about the Chicana’s struggle for self- definition but also speaks to simultaneous external and internal social and cultural pressures. As a result of repositioning and re-coding the image of the Chola, these writers articulate a sense of difference and defiance in writing about la vida loca from gendered lenses. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS !"#$%&'(&)'*+%*+,& !"#$%&'(#!%"))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) *! (+,-#.$/*0/12!(.&/#%"3'.14/1!2."#/1($.,510/!"/67#,/5,6,/5'$$,681/!"#$% )))))))))9*! 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