CROSSING BORDERS AND BUILDING ALLIANCES: BORDER DISCOURSE WITHIN LITERATURES AND RHETORICS OF COLOR A Dissertation by AYDE ENRIQUEZ-LOYA Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2012 Major Subject: English Crossing Borders and Building Alliances: Border Discourse within Literatures and Rhetorics of Color Copyright 2012 Ayde Enriquez-Loya ` CROSSING BORDERS AND BUILDING ALLIANCES: BORDER DISCOURSE WITHIN LITERATURES AND RHETORICS OF COLOR A Dissertation by AYDE ENRIQUEZ-LOYA Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, Qwo-Li Driskill Committee Members, Shona Jackson Juan Alonzo Angela Pulley-Hudson Head of Department, Nancy Warren August 2012 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Crossing Borders and Building Alliances: Border Discourse within Literatures and Rhetorics of Color. (August 2012) Ayde Enriquez-Loya, B.A., The University of Texas at El Paso; M.A., The University of Texas at El Paso Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill Building on Victor Villanueva and Malea Powell’s research in rhetoric and writing, in my dissertation I assert that the hierarchical construction of knowledges within literatures and rhetorics has traditionally been utilized to oppress the bodies, histories, and voices of color within both disciplines. I ask that we interrogate the ways in which divisions between communities of color have been rhetorically instated and use the space created by these rifts to build alliances and communities. Centralizing my discourse within Indigenous and Chicana feminist practices, in Chapter I, I define rhetorical borders and illustrate how we can create alliances and provide the methodology for engaging the underlying rhetorics within interdisciplinary works. Practicing this methodology, in Chapter II, I utilize trickster rhetorics in my reading of Wendy Rose’s The Halfbreed Chronicles to illustrate how an alliance between rhetorics and literatures facilitates an alternate reading to emerge that defies a colonial gaze and to illustrate how this methodology could be applied to other texts. In iv Chapter III, I juxtapose Leslie Marmon Silko’s rhetorical storytelling structure exemplified in “A Geronimo Story” with Henry David Thoreau’s “The Allegash and East Branch” to demonstrate how characters defy their hyperrealist constructions by enacting rhetorics of survivance to both protect people and knowledges and still have their stories heard. In Chapter IV, I argue that while initially the language barrier functions as a rhetorical border that defies history’s colonial imposition in Tino Villanueva’s Crónica de Mis Años Peores, he ultimately utilizes it to both recover his childhood, memory and history, and also to create alliances with other native Spanish speakers whose own experiences will facilitate the understanding of the language used. In Chapter V, I argue that the pedagogical implications of bringing together works of literatures and rhetorics into the writing classroom will dramatically impact students’ relationship to writing, storytelling, and meaning-making. My dissertation contributes significantly to both disciplines of Rhetoric & Composition and Literatures of Color by redefining the tools and rules by which we can engage a text. Additionally, my dissertation demonstrates that only through mutual use of rhetorical and literary approaches, through an interdisciplinary alliance, can we truly hear all stories. v DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Guadalupe Enriquez, who has always been my role model and my greatest source of support. Gracias Madrecita! vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The task of completing my PhD could not have been done without the continued support, ongoing encouragement, and help of so many individuals. First, I am very grateful to my husband, Joel Eric Loya, my best friend, the love of my life. Thank you for all your support, patience, laughter, and love. You have always been the joy in my life even in the worst of times. Thank you for always standing by me, loving me, and blessing my days with your beautiful smile. I could not have done any of this without knowing I could come home to you. I love you. I am blessed to have my daughter Sofia, my angel, my little shadow, and my princess. Thank you for your laughter, your hugs, and your kisses. I’m so proud of you my love. You inspire me to be a better person. I adore you. I would like to thank my parents, Guadalupe Enriquez and Gilbert Lopez, for keeping me grounded, humble, and honest. I thank them for their unwavering support and their love. I love you both. I would also like to thank my siblings, Cristina and Rafael, for always standing up for me and supporting me along the way. You both are amazing and I love you. In addition, I would like to thank my nieces, Viviana, Stephanie, and Isabella, who have always been my cheerleading squad. I’m so proud of you girls, and I love you. Without my family’s unwavering support, I would have given up a long time ago. To Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill: thank you for teaching me by example to be an ethical and responsible scholar, thank you for being an amazing professor, mentor, friend, and vii person, for believing in me and not letting me give up. Gvgeyu! To Dr. Shona Jackson: thank you for teaching me not to be afraid of theory, thank you for standing with me when I most needed you, thank you for being such an amazing professor. To Dr. Juan Alonzo: thank you for challenging me to question my own ideologies and my own translations, thank you for forcing me to interrogate my own rhetorical patterns. To Dr. Angela Pulley Hudson: thank you for all your support throughout this process, thank you for all your feedback and thank you for showing me I can be a professor and a mother and be brilliant at both jobs. To my friends Yolanda Ochoa, Casie Cobos, Stephanie Wheeler, Gabriela Raquel Rios, Marcos Del Hierro, and Victor Del Hierro, who have become like family, my sisters and brothers from other mothers. Thank you for your friendship, your support, your laughter. Thank you for standing up for me when I needed you most. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION....................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... viii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: DECOLONIZING THE ACADEMY: USING THE RHETORICAL BORDERS OF RHETORICS & LITERATURES OF COLOR TO BUILD ALLIANCES .................................................... 1 Introduction ................................................................................. 2 Colonizing Institutions ................................................................. 4 Rhetorical Borders & Alliances .................................................... 11 Conclusion ................................................................................... 27 II RECLAIMING BODIES, SPACES, AND HISTORIES: WENDY . ROSE’S TRICKSTER RHETORICS IN THE HALFBREED CHRONICLES ................................................................................... 30 Introduction ................................................................................. 30 Bearing Witness to the Violence against Women of Color ........... 32 Rhetorical Alliances ..................................................................... 35 Trickster Rhetorics & Mixed-blood Rhetorics: Acts of Survivance ................................................................................... 40 Survivance Stories: Reclaiming the Bodies, Lands, and Stories in The Halfbreed Chronicles ............................................................ 49 Conclusion ................................................................................... 64 III AMERICAN INDIAN RHETORICS OF SILENCE AND RECOVERY: ENACTING RHETORICS OF SURVIVANCE IN 19TH CENTURY EUROPEAN AMERICAN LITERATURE .......... 67 Introduction ................................................................................. 67 Storytelling Practices: Acts of Survivance .................................... 70 ix CHAPTER Page The Rhetorics of Empire within Travel and Nature Writing ......... 76 Storytelling Practices of Survivance ............................................. 82 Rhetorics of Silence as Survivance ............................................... 86 Rhetorics of Recovery through Storytelling and Survivance ......... 96 Conclusion .................................................................................. 101 IV RHETORICS OF TRANSLATION AND SURVIVANCE: THE ETHICAL TRANSLATION OF STORIES, LANDS, AND BODIES IN THE CHICANO POETRY OF TINO VILLANUEVA ................. 104 Introduction ................................................................................. 105 Third Space Politics of Rhetorics and Poetics ............................... 106 Decolonizing the Text Using Trickster Rhetorics, Mixed-blood Rhetorics & Survivance ............................................................... 112 Crónicas de Mis Años Peores: Challenging the History Lessons 118 Challenging the Construction of Languages ................................