Negotiating Feminisms: Sandra Cisneros and Ana Castillo’s Intergenerational Women (Literatures of the Americas)

Negotiating Feminisms examines intergenerational feminism in Chicanx family life. It analyses literary representations of the ways that Chicanas negotiate feminisms in the family across generations, through the maintenance, contestation, and adaptation of traditional gender roles. Using an original theoretical lens of negotiation to read the works of Ana Castillo and Sandra Cisneros, this book unpacks intergenerational resistance to patriarchal oppression. This book shows how the works of Cisneros and Castillo articulate a politics of negotiation that critiques the gendered ideologies and roles of the family. In doing so, the book’s discussion not only engages with literary representations but also connects these representations to the contextual experience of Chicanx family life. This book calls for a rethinking of women characters beyond limited, and limiting, familial roles and uses the framework of feminist negotiation as a means to explore the empowering possibilities ofintergenerational female relationships.