Elena

Pat Mora is one of the most important poetic voices in Chicano/Chicana literature. The words “Chicano” (masculine) and “Chicana” (feminine), which can be used as both nouns and adjectives, refer to Americans of Mexican descent. They derive from a particular pronunciation of the Spanish word for “Mexican” and have been used since the 1960s as an expression of pride in an American’s Mexican heritage. The phrase “Mexican-American” has fallen out of favor because many associates it with the assimilationist view that Americans of Mexican origin should strive to put their heritage behind and melt into mainstream American culture. In contrast, the so-called Chicano movement and the literature that emerged from it emphasize the significance of Mexican heritage in Chicano/Chicana lives and advocate a continuing engagement with indigenous traditions. Thus, many Chicano/Chicana writers, including Mora, incorporate native Mexican myths, images, and ideas into their work, merging it with aspects of contemporary life in the United States.

Since the 1960s, Chicano/Chicana writing has flourished into a major strand of American literature, and an increasing number of colleges and universities offer courses, minors, and majors in Chicano/Chicana studies. For a long time, voices and experiences of American women with Mexican heritage were neglected in what was initially known simply as Chicano literature. Pat Mora is one of many female writers whose work has filled that void. Using the compound phrase “Chicano/Chicana,” rather than just the masculine “Chicano,” acknowledges and honors the contributions of women like Mora. The recently coined gender-neutral word “Chicanx” overcomes the grammatical gender division in the Spanish language, but it is not widely used yet. The similar concept of “Latinx” (people of all genders with Latin American roots, as opposed to “Latino” and “Latina”) has become prominent, so “Chicanx” is also likely to acquire cultural acceptance in the years to come.

An important theme in much Chicano/Chicana literature, including Mora’s work, is the hybrid identity of people who have crossed the border between Mexico and the United States, have grown up and live near that border, or who continually cross it, such as the people who live in the Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez but work in the twin city of El Paso across the border of Texas. These individuals are bilingual and bicultural, and their existence cannot be reduced to either Mexican (Spanish speaking) or American (English speaking) identity. Instead, they live in the “in-between” space of blending and mixing different linguistic and cultural categories. Perhaps the most influential work exploring that state is Gloria Anzaldua’s semi-autobiographical book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, published in 1987. Anzaldua focuses on Chicana women’s constant shifting between cultures and on what she calls “mestiza consciousness,” a way of being and thinking that eludes borders and identities, endorsing hybridity and healing psychological and cultural wounds caused by colonial and patriarchal divisions. In Latin America, the words “mestizo” (masculine) and “mestiza” (feminine) describe people of mixed race, with both European and indigenous ancestry. However, Anzaldua’s “mestiza consciousness” describes the experience of women like her and Pat Mora, who find themselves unable and unwilling to choose one culture over another or to speak one language at the exclusion of the other. More broadly, this mentality questions psychological “borders” that keep people apart rather than bring them together. Thus, in her poetry collection called Borders (1986), Mora celebrates bonds between women of different generations and heritage as they support each other in their resistance to gender, ethnic, and economic oppression.