Dia de los Muertos

Mexican figures like La Virgen de Guadalupe, la Malinche, la Llorona, and la Chingada reflect different myths of motherhood in Mexican culture. For the first time, Melero examines these instances of portrayed motherhood as a discursive space in the political, cultural, and literary context of early twentieth century Mexico.

Transforming Borders: Chicana/o Popular Culture and Pedagogy contributes to transformative pedagogies scholarship by adding the voices of Chicana feminist pedagogies, epistemologies, and ontologies. C. Alejandra Elenes develops her conceptualizations of border/transformative pedagogies by linking the relationship between cultural practices, knowledge, and teaching in everyday life. She analyzes Chicana feminist cultural workers/educational actors re-imagining three Mexican figures: La Llorona (the weeping woman), the Virgen of Guadalupe, and Malintzin/Malinche as epistemological and pedagogical meanings. The three figures represent multiple meanings: traditional views on femininity, religion, and nationalist views on women, yet at the same time, feminists have re-imagined these three figures and developed counter-narratives that can offer alternatives to the traditional meanings. In developing border/transformative pedagogies, Elenes looks at the significance of historical events, such as the creation of the Mexico-U.S. border, to understand the experiences of people of Mexican descent in the United States. She also examines oral histories of the legend of La Llorona in the Southwest, historical documents on the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and Chicana artists such as Ester Hernandez, Yolanda Lopez, Consuelo Jimenez Underwood, and Alma Lopez re-imagining of the Virgen of Guadalupe. The conflicts over the meanings of the three figures can help us understand how Chicanas have used their voices to counter economic and gender inequalities and how pedagogical practices show that cultural productions are sites where forms of domination can be contested and recreated in ways that allow for the creation of alternative identities and subjectivities.

Bilingual English/Spanish. A unique interpretation of the famous Mexican legend of la Llorona

"How is it that there are so many lloronas?" A haunting figure of Mexican oral and literary traditions, La Llorona permeates the consciousness of her folk community. From a ghost who haunts the riverbank to a murderous mother condemned to wander the earth after killing her own children in an act of revenge or grief, the Weeping Woman has evolved within Chican@ imaginations across centuries, yet no truly comprehensive examination of her impact existed until now. Tracing La Llorona from ancient oral tradition to her appearance in contemporary material culture, There Was a Woman delves into the intriguing transformations of this provocative icon.From La Llorona's roots in legend to the revisions of her story and her exaltation as a symbol of resistance, Domino Renee Perez illuminates her many permutations as seductress, hag, demon, or pitiful woman. Perez draws on more than two hundred artifacts to provide vivid representations of the ways in which these perceived identities are woven from abstract notions--such as morality or nationalism--and from concrete, often misunderstood concepts from advertising to television and literature. The result is a rich and intricate survey of a powerful figure who continues to be reconfigured.