The simplest way of defining "Latina literature" would be to say that it comprises the poetry, prose, fiction, drama, journalism, and political manifestos produced by women of Latin American descent residing in the United States. Latina literature has most often been characterized by contemporary literary critics as concerned with questions of identity, with the exploration of the experience of "being Latina" within the United States. Critics draw attention to the poignant representations of minority embodiment offered by Latinas, highlighting their literary explorations of sexual, racial, or gendered identities within their machista minoritarian cultures. The wellspring of Latina literature focused on the embodiment of identity in the 1970s and 1980s was due to the historical conjuncture. Read catachrestically, Latina enables a different critical focus to emerge, one that transfers this frame onto the experience of embodiment recorded in the era of identitarian literature.