Translatability in Chicano Poetry: Language and Sociocultural Identity in Gloria Anzaldúa

Abstract

Towards the end of the 20th century, Chicano literature entered a space of dialogue with the hegemonic literatures of the United States. At this intersection, English and the imaginary known as Americana clashed and intertwined with Spanish and Mexican traditions and iconographies. Therefore, the identitarian configuration of female writers immersed in these heterogeneous conditions becomes a subject for analysis. In particular, this article will focus on the use of language and cultural images by a group of Chicano female writers who published their work in the United States at the beginning of the 80’s: Gloria Anzaldúa, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Cherríe Moraga, and Ángela de Hoyos, among others. From the point of view of hermeneutic research, a qualitative analysis will be carried out within the framework of cultural studies and comparative literature. In this way, the main purpose of this article is to describe the linguistic techniques used in Gloria Anzaldúa's poems and to analyze the way in which her poetry is constituted with respect to her socio-cultural and ethnic reality. It will also seek to elucidate the extent to which the author's work is translatable, and the linguistic and identity implications of the translation. To this end, this research will be based on the work of Lilia De Katzew (2004), which establishes reference points for analyzing each of the linguistic strategies used in this type of literary texts, and on the research of Teresa S. Longo (1981), which will be used as the basis for analyzing code-switching, one of the strategies most used by the author in the selected work.