Ellen McCracken
New Latina Narrative: The Feminine Space of Postmodern Ethnicity
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1999. Pp. 223. $19.95
Reviewed by Anna Hamling

This is probably the first book on the subject of recent Latina women writers in the U.S., who during the last two decades of the twentieth century have had quite an impact on American mainstream fiction and regional grassroots in the U.S. With the sudden rise of publishers' interest in ethnic commodities, Latina women's narratives have become desirable and profitable. This, in turn, has allowed such writers to present their concerns on a broad range of issues, including ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, to a wide and receptive audience. In six essays, McCracken offers a concise literary analysis on a number of narratives by Latina writers of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Dominican descent living and writing in various locations across the U.S. The national and cultural influences shaping these writers are both complex and diverse, as the author reminds us at the beginning of her book.

McCracken analyzes the narratives of Sandra Cisneros, Ana Castillo, Cristina García, Julia Alvarez, and Graciela Limón, among others. Taken together, the essays suggest the correctness of Ernesto Laclau's statement that "discourse of integration was founded in the circulation of an increasingly complex system of differences" (5). In the chapter "Postmodern Ethnicity as Commodity," the author discusses the images of Latina writers as ideal marketing commodities. One illustration pictures Sandra Cisneros as she appears in Elle magazine (1991) wearing traditional Mexican costume that allows for an exotic decoding of the "typically Mexican," an attempt to reach a wide audience through mainstream publishers (16). By breaking through such a pleasing veneer of the ideal Latina postmodern commodity, Cisnero and others explore the unexpected social problems and redefine traditional notions of ethnicity and gender from the popular viewpoint. Such is the case with Cleófilas, protagonist of Cisneros's Woman Hollering Creek (1990), who, after being beaten by her husband, is transformed from a victim into an active protagonist.

In "The Politics of Signification," the author analyzes how Latina writers utilize biblical imagery to either revise or reinforce historical memory. For example, in G. Limón's The Memories of Ana Calderón the author provides the background of civil war in El Salvador. The seminarian Bernabé, carrying a large cross in Archbishop Romero's funeral procession, begins his own version of the Passion of Christ, ultimately leading his people across the river to escape the military.

In "Beyond Individualism, Collective Narration, History and Autobiographical Simulacrum," McCracken discusses the narratives of L. Corpi and J. Alvarez, focusing on the individual and collective experiences of their protagonists. Such is also the case in Sylvia López-Medina's Cantora (1992), which merges autobiography and fiction as the author searches for her own identity and origins. The writer reconstructs the story of her family over recent generations: her father's unsuccessful attempts to arrange a marriage for his daughter Rosario; the rape of Rosario's daughter Pilar outside a convent; and the abduction of Pilar's daughter by her brother. As the author links her individual identity to the larger identity of her family, she reveals the repressed truth of one family history.

The chapter "Remapping Religious Space" investigates the ways in which narratives refashion Latino religious practices, including the popular, syncretic, and official belief systems in the political light of issues such as justice and the concerns of immigrants, the landless, feminists, and gays. In Roberta Fernández's Intaglio, Filomena presents the popular rituals of the Day of the Dead in the south of Texas and Michoacán. She discovers that the richness of the Mexican forms of popular religious ceremony contrast greatly with severe official religious celebrations in Texas. In "Transgressive Narrative Tactics and Subcultural Expression" McCracken discusses examples of sexual transgression which challenge the male subculture and break sexual taboos. In the story The Artist by N. Mohr, Inez frees herself from the burden of raising children by secretly taking birth control pills, posing nude, and thereby challenging her husband's power over her. She creates an image that she herself controls. In the chapter "Gender, Ethnicity and Political Truths," the author highlights both the nationalistic cultural trends of a "parent" culture and the ethnic ties that unite many Latinos who engage in identity politics. In Julia Alvarez's García Girls the author discusses the problems of assimilation experienced at school by the García girls following their emigration from the Dominican Republic. Alvarez depicts the problems that result from their father's desire to maintain the old cultural traditions in their new country.

In sum, the book-a "melting pot" of names, titles, and diverse preoccupations of Latina women writers in the U.S.-is a pleasure to read and promises to lead to further explorations of Latin-American women writers. Overall, McCracken's book is informative and well written, though a brief discussion on Laura Esquival's and Isabel Allende's works would have added a bit more spice to the present edition.