Troubling Nationhood in U.S Latina Literature: Explorations of Place and Belonging MayaSocolovsky. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.

Abstract

Troubling Nationhood in U.S Latina Literature: Explorations of Place and Belonging Maya Socolovsky. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2013.During 1990s and 2000s US Latinas produced a surge of literary narratives that explore intersection of place and identity within reimagined borders. In Troubling Nationhood in U.S. Latina Literature, Maya Socolovsky analyzes texts of six feminist Latina writers, writing from liminal zones, whose narratives act as sites of cultural resistance against xenophobic US rhetoric of nationhood which positions Latinos/as as outsiders. Socolovsky argues that Latino/a literary narratives imagine collective geographical, political, and cultural presence, where Latina America becomes part of, not apart from, political and national identity of United States (3). These texts reconceptualize Latina identity through a rhetoric of belonging-one that challenges hegemonic US national identification which defines porous national and cultural borders between US and Latin America as an insidious threat to US cultural and political identity while it simultaneously ignores West's history of hemispheric transnationalism and Latino/s presence in United States. In her literary and rhetorical analysis, Socolovsky urges textual readings that reveal process whereby geographical landscapes, cultural practices, and narrative spaces all become intersecting aspects of national identification and experience (5).Taking into consideration panethnic commonalities, Socolovsky divides her book in various ways to promote a remapping of Americas: through geopolitical histories of national-origin groups (Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American), geographic regions (Southwest, Midwest, Puerto Rican and Cuban island and mainland experiences), and racial identities (Native American, African, and mestizaje). Rooted in Borderland and Hispanic Studies, Socolovsky's study emphasizes interconnectedness of regional landscape and women's sense of survival and maintains that the literature creates, suggests, or reveals radical social change (6). Through storytelling, writers of US Latina boom expose physical and psychological trauma of 'othering' while asserting their belonging to/in same nation that denies them agency and autonomy.Socolovsky begins with Denise Chavez's portrayal of female body as site of cultural ills in The Last of Menu Girls (1986) and Face of an Angel (1994). In these texts, generations of abuse represent (and are a consequence of) violent national histories in Southwestern region of US. Chavez provides a metaphor for cultural healing in her portrayal of Latinas overcoming familial and institutional cruelty, specifically through writing process, while redefining American to include indigenous identities of Americas. …