Landscaping a Poetics of Belonging: Maps of the Imagination in Chicana/o Literature

Abstract

In 1987, I published “Tradition and Mythology: Signatures of Landscapes in Chicana Literature,” in which I argued that the representation of landscapes by Chicana writers in the Southwest were attempts to formulate identity as seen in a sense of the land accompanied increasingly by a sense of female power.¹ Since that chapter, published more than 20 years ago, I have continued to analyze the metaphors of both urban and rural landscapes to see how they enhance the complexities of the contemporary world. Increasingly, I see the signatures of landscapes as intrinsic to a poetics of belonging as Chicana and Chicano writers mark their places in modern society. While there are multiple approaches to analyzing landscape in literature, I want to examine here how what I will call a poetics of belonging manifests in the construction of a built landscape in texts by Pat Mora, Richard Rodriguez, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Diana García. I will briefly analyze how these authors represent their sense of belonging or not belonging by symbolically mapping the landscapes of their imaginations and including those features or signatures that best present their perspectives.