Los discursos sobre sexualidad en la obra de Alicia Gaspar de Alba

Abstract

In this study, I approach the works of Alicia Gaspar de Alba (1958- )--poet, fiction writer and cultural critic--by focusing on the construction of the discourses of gender and sexuality in her writings. In this analysis of poems, short stories, fiction and cultural criticism from the last two decades of the twentieth century, it is necessary to offer a contextualization within the confluence in which they arise: the birth and development of Chicana lesbian feminist thought. For this reason, my research has two parts. First, I offer a critical and theoretical introduction in which I focus on exploring the works of several contemporary Chicana authors who define themselves as feminist-lesbians. Following this discussion, I examine the theorization of the mestiza consciousness within Chicana Feminist Thought as part of U.S. Third World Feminism. In an introspective fashion, I attempt to combine these theoretical writings with those from the field of Sexual Studies that have been influential to formulations of lesbian desire in the last two decades of the twentieth century. In the second part, I gather those theories and concepts and use them to inform a critical investigation of the construction of discourses of gender and sexuality in three works by Alicia Gaspar de Alba: a poetry collection, "Beggar on the Cr̤doba Brigde" (1989), her short stories in The Mystery of Survival (1993) and her novel Sor Juana's Second Dream (1999). I also consider the presence of the body in her literary discourses, and the incorporation of clothing into an integral vision of the figure of the mestiza. In this section, Gaspar de Alba's unique lesbian gaze is revealed as a result of her interest in multiple positionalities. I follow this analysis with an exploration of her revision of the myth of La Malinche, in relation to the treatment of sexual violence against women in Chicana feminist literature. In the third section of my analysis of Gaspar de Alba's works, by means of the study of the discursive space of dreams, I analyze the rise of lesbian desire and the relationship between sexual and textual pleasure in her works. Finally, I discuss Gaspar de Alba's interest in expanding her discourses towards wider audiences. Throughout my discussion, I continuously relate her writings with those of other Chicana feminist-lesbians, especially the literary work of Cherre̕ Moraga, Gloria Andalza︢ and Emma Přez.