SOURCE: Salazar-Parr, Carmen. “La Chicana in Literature.” In Chicano Studies: A Multidisciplinary Approach, edited by Eugene E. García, Francisco A. Lomelí, and Isidro D. Ortiz, pp. 120-34. New York: Teachers College Press, 1984.

In the following essay, Salazar-Parr surveys the range of female characters in Portillo Trambley's fiction and drama.

Introduction

In the prologue to The Female Imagination Patricia Meyer Spacks states that “changing social conditions increase or diminish the opportunities for women's action and expression, but a special female self-awareness emerges through literature in every period.”¹ She examines literature written in English during the past three hundred years to see if there are patterns in the female experience that are persistent ways of feeling, patterns that survive despite change. Although her investigation refers to the Anglo tradition, it identifies some elements characteristic of the “special female self-awareness” that are universal and that apply to other literary traditions...