"I feel, therefore I can be free": Black women and Chicana queer narratives as differential consciousness and foundational theory
Date
2012
Authors
Middleton, Kianna Marie, author
Cespedes, Karina, advisor
DeMirjyn, Maricela, advisor
Breaux, Richard, committee member
Thompson, Deborah, committee member
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Abstract
This thesis is a literary analysis of queer Black women and Chicanas within the fictional and semi-autobiographical texts of "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" (2003) by ZZ Packer, What Night Brings (2003) by Carla Trujillo, "Spice" (1997) by Mattie Richardson, "La Ofrenda" (1991) by Cherríe Moraga, "Mamita te extraño" (1991) by Karen T. Delgadillo, and Corregidora (1975) by Gayl Jones. This is an assessment of dislocation, of trauma within relationships both matrilineal and otherwise, and how status as outsiders affects and heightens senses which moves queer women of color in these narratives into deeper levels of consciousness and allows for them resistance and freedom that is independent from binaries and is differential and disidentified in composition. I build this work upon the varying ways in which violence and erasure occur towards Black and Chicana lesbians in literature. This includes physical violence, sexual violence, emotional violence and also literary violence and invisibility. Through revealing the sources of pain and abjection within narratives I discuss how these queer women gain empowerment and freedom by maintaining differential and creative consciousness as they navigate the world. And finally, I offer the practice of reading and writing narratives through lived experience as a basis on which new queer women of color theories can be imagined.