ERIC Number: EJ868526
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2009
Pages: 32
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0005-2604
EISSN: N/A
Queering the Cosmic Race: Esotericism, Mestizaje, and Sexuality in the Work of Gabriela Mistral and Gloria Anzaldua
Tace Hedrick
Aztlan: A Journal of Chicano Studies, v34 n2 p 67-98 Fall 2009
Despite their differences in place and time, the woman-centered Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral and the Chicana lesbian feminist writer Gloria Anzaldua both looked to a transnational intellectual American history that frequently connected discourses of esotericism, indigenismo, and mestizaje. My comparative approach shows how both women used these discourses as a way to reconceptualize the subjectivity of the queer, indigenous-identified mestiza in a modern world. Notions of a new cosmic consciousness achieved via racial synthesis echo through twentieth-century Latin American and Chicana/o texts; theosophical ideas about race and spirit were deeply influential in Mistral's writing and beliefs, and theosophy in turn informed the New Age feminist spirituality that helped shape Anzaldua's work. Outlining a history of the connections between these esoteric beliefs and those of mestizaje, and indigenismo, I show how Mistral and, later, Anzaldua inherited and rewrote these notions by incorporating them into a queer sensibility.
Descriptors: United States History, Feminism, Race, Homosexuality, Latin Americans, Foreign Countries, Poets, Mexican Americans, Comparative Analysis, Beliefs, Hispanic American Literature, Indigenous Populations, Sexuality, Authors
UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center. 193 Haines Hall, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1544. Tel: 310-794-9380; Tel: 310-825-2642; Fax: 310-206-1784; e-mail: press@chicano.ucla.edu; Web site: http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/press
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Chile
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A