SOURCE: Dewey, Janice. “Doña Josefa: Bloodpulse of Transition and Change.” In Breaking Boundaries: Latina Writing and Critical Readings, edited by Asunción Horno-Delgado, Eliana Ortega, Nina M. Scott, and Nancy Saporta Sternbach, pp. 39-47. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1989.

In the following essay, Dewey places The Day of the Swallows within the Chicano literary tradition.

An analysis of Estela Portillo Trambley's Chicana drama, The Day of the Swallows (1971),¹ presents numerous ambiguities that surround the unifying theme of woman in relation to her psychocultural and physical environment. These ambiguities become clarified through the interpretation of the central character of Doña Josefa, the town high priestess of charity and love. A declaration is made for the theater-going public in general and the Chicano community in particular; any human being stifled in the natural unfolding of her/his life can either rebel or submit. Though the dramatic circumstances of...