Book contents
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Latinx literature in transition
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Space
- Part II Being
- Chapter 5 Brown Modernism from María Cristina Mena to Gloria Anzaldúa
- Chapter 6 The Spanish–Indigenous Binary and Anti-Blackness as Literary Inheritance
- Chapter 7 The Camaraderie of Influence
- Chapter 8 Spiritual Service and Gendered Labor
- Part III Time
- Part IV Form
- Part V Labor
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Chapter 8 - Spiritual Service and Gendered Labor
Rereading Religion and Labor in … y no se lo tragó la tierra and Face of an Angel
from Part II - Being
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 April 2025
Book contents
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Latinx literature in transition
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part I Space
- Part II Being
- Chapter 5 Brown Modernism from María Cristina Mena to Gloria Anzaldúa
- Chapter 6 The Spanish–Indigenous Binary and Anti-Blackness as Literary Inheritance
- Chapter 7 The Camaraderie of Influence
- Chapter 8 Spiritual Service and Gendered Labor
- Part III Time
- Part IV Form
- Part V Labor
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter asks how religion has been understood in Chicanx literature by connecting the performance of syncretic spiritual labor with the task of telling stories about the exploitation of Chicanx labor. It takes Tomás Rivera’s 1971 … y no se lo tragó la tierra (Tierra) and Denise Chávez’s 1994 novel Face of an Angel (Angel) as test cases. By closely revisiting a work of criticism that is emblematic of the way Chicanx literary criticism approaches the role of religion in literature, this chapter shows how reproductive labor, service labor, and syncretic religious labor are inadvertently obscured by the urgency of attending to class identity and farm labor in the case of Tierra, or non-religious spirituality and fetishized indigeneity in the case of Angel. In particular, the chapter returns to Ramón Saldívar’s germinal reading of Rivera’s novel and Theresa Delgadillo’s incisive interpretation of Chávez’s novel to explore how subtly and entirely certain subjectivities become illegible. Drawing inspiration from scholars such as Judith Butler, the chapter scrutinizes notions of agency within gender performance and advocates for a paradigm shift that acknowledges the deeper significance found in seemingly menial tasks, such as washing dishes or clearing used plates.
Keywords
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Latinx Literature in Transition, 1848–1992 , pp. 143 - 160Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Androne, Helane. “‘An Actress in a Play’: Service as Sacred Performance in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel.” Ritual Structures in Chicana Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, pp. 79–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Scott A., and Rangel, Dolores E.. “Representations of Mexican American Migrant Childhood in Rivera’s … y no se lo tragó la tierra and Viramontes’s Under the Feet of Jesus.” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe, vol. 29, no. 1, 2008, pp. 14–24. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25745882.Google Scholar
Calderón, Héctor. “The Novel and the Community of Readers: Rereading Tomas Rivera … y no se lo tragó la tierra.” Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies in Literature, Culture, and Ideology. Duke UP, 1991, pp. 97–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cárdenas, Lupe. “Growing Up Chicano – Crisis Time in Three Contemporary Chicano Novels (Pocho, … y no se lo tragó la tierra, and The Rain God).” Confluencia, vol. 3, no. 1, 1987, pp. 129–136. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27921760.Google Scholar
Chang, Grace. Disposable Domestics: Immigrant Women Workers in the Global Economy. South End P, 2000.Google Scholar
Cutler, John Alba. Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature. Oxford UP, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, John Alba. “Quinto Sol, Chicano/a Literature, and the Long March through Institutions.” American Literary History, vol. 26, no. 2, 2014, pp. 262–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daydí-Tolson, Santiago. “Ritual and Religion in Tomas Rivera’s Work.” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe, vol. 13, no. 1/2, 1986, pp. 136–149. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25744843.Google Scholar
de Dwyer, Carlota Cardenas. “Cultural Regionalism and Chicano Literature.” Western American Literature, vol. 15, no. 3, 1980, pp. 187–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de la Fuente, Patricia. “Invisible Women in the Narrative of Tomás Rivera.” International Studies in Honor of Tomás Rivera, edited by Olivares, Julian. Arte Público, 1986, pp. 81–90.Google Scholar
Delgadillo, Theresa. Spiritual Mestizaje: Religion, Gender, Race, and Nation in Contemporary Chicana Narrative. Duke UP, 2011.Google Scholar
Delgadillo, Theresa, and Vieira, Leila. “Contemporary Latinx Literature in the Midwest.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. 28 Aug. 2018. Oxford UP. https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-390.Google Scholar
González, Marcial. “Labor Movements and Chicana/o Literature.” Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. 25 Feb. 2019. Oxford UP. https://oxfordre.com/literature/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.001.0001/acrefore-9780190201098-e-927.Google Scholar
Grajeda, Ralph F. “Tomas Rivera’s … y no se lo tragó la tierra: Discovery and Appropriation of the Chicano Past.” Hispania, vol. 62, no. 1, 1979, pp. 71–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette. Doméstica: Immigrant Workers Cleaning and Caring in the Shadows of Affluence. U of California P, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hurst, Mary Jane. “Contours of the Future in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel and Rudolfo Anaya’s Alburquerque.” Language, Gender, and Community in Late Twentieth-Century Fiction: American Voices and American Identities. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, pp. 139–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lattin, Vernon E. “The Quest for Mythic Vision in Contemporary Native American and Chicano Fiction.” American Literature, vol. 50, no. 4, 1979, pp. 625–640.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Limón, José Eduardo. Dancing with the Devil: Society and Cultural Poetics in Mexican-American South Texas. U of Wisconsin P, 1994.Google Scholar
Lopez, Joe Raymond. Religion in Selected Works of Chicano Literature. 1975. Texas Tech U, PhD dissertation.Google Scholar
Naranjo-Huebl, Linda. “Faith, Hope and Service in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel.” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature, vol. 61, no. 1, 2007, pp. 51–72.Google Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. “The Gender and Labor Politics of Postmodernity.” The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital, edited by Lowe, Lisa and Lloyd, David. Duke UP, 1997, pp. 61–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivera, Tomas. … y no se lo tragó la tierra/… And the Earth Did Not Devour Him. Translated by Vigil-Piñon, Evangelina. Arte Público, 2015.Google Scholar
Robles, Francisco E. “Communal Imagination and the Problem of Allegory in Tomás Rivera’s … y no se lo tragó la tierra.” Twentieth-Century Literature, vol. 68, no. 1, 2022, pp. 53–74. https://doi.org/10.1215/0041462X-9668897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rocha, Carolina Mariana. “Writing as Chicano Rebellion: Y no se lo tragó la tierra.” Romance Notes, vol. 61, no. 1, 2021, pp. 135–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saldaña-Portillo, María Josefina. The Revolutionary Imagination in the Americas and the Age of Development. Duke UP, 2003.Google Scholar
Saldívar, Ramón. Chicano Narrative: The Dialectics of Difference. U of Wisconsin P, 1990.Google Scholar
Seliger, M. “Colonialism, Contract and Community in Américo Paredes’s George Washington Gómez and … And the Earth Did Not Devour Him by Tomás Rivera.” Latino Studies, vol. 7, 2009, pp. 435–456. https://doi.org/10.1057/lst.2009.32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Socolovsky, Maya. “Narrative and Traumatic Memory in Denise Chávez’s Face of an Angel.” MELUS, vol. 28, no. 4, 2003, pp. 187–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spillers, Hortense J. “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammar Book.” The Transgender Studies Reader Remix, edited by Stryker, Susan and McCarthy Blackston, Dylan. Routledge, 1987, pp. 93–104.Google Scholar
Valadez, Micaela. “Remembering the Tex-Son Strike: Legacies of Latina-Led Labor Activism in San Antonio, Texas.” Not Even Past: Texas, 2019. https://notevenpast.org/texsonstrike/.Google Scholar
Weeks, Kathi. “Life Within and Against Work: Affective Labor, Feminist Critique, and Post-Fordist Politics.” ephemera, vol. 7, no. 1, 2007, pp. 233–249.Google Scholar