SOURCE: Fellner, Astrid M. “Migratory Subjectivities.” In Articulating Selves: Contemporary Chicana Self-Representation, pp. 111-40. Vienna: Braumüller, 2002.

In the following excerpt, Fellner emphasizes the key role of language and translation in the process of self-definition undergone by María in Demetria Martínez's Mother Tongue.

The bridge I must be Is the bridge to my own power I must translate My own fears Mediate My own weaknesses 

I must be the bridge to nowhere But my true self And then I will be useful 

—Donna Kate Rushin¹

Demetria Martínez was born and raised in Albuquerque NM. She now lives in Tucson AZ, where she works as a columnist for the National Catholic Reporter and is also a free-lance writer covering religious issues for the Albuquerque Journal. Martínez, like Graciela Limón, was politically committed to the protests against U.S. military aid in the civil war...