Speaking of books, don’t miss the latest Chicana scholarship by MALCSistas Marta Sanchez, Catrióna Esquibel, and Tey Diana Rebolledo.

Catrióna Rueda Esquibel‘s With Her Machete In Her Hand: Reading Chicana Lesbians assertively maps the depiction of lesbian characters and desires in a wide range of plays, novels, and short stories by Chicana/o authors. More importantly, it makes Alicia Gaspar de Alba “wildly ecstatic…” 😉 Catrióna is Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at San Francisco State University. Don’t miss her website, an annotated bibliography, 20th Century Queer Chicana Fictions.

Marta Sanchez‘s latest work is “Shakin’ Up” Race and Gender: Intercultural Connections in Puerto Rican, African American, and Chicano Narratives and Culture (1965-1995). Marta “creates an intercultural frame to study the historical and cultural connections among Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and Chicanos/as since the 1960s.” Marta is Professor of Literature at Arizona State University and Professor Emerita at the University of California, San Diego, where she taught from 1977 to 2004.

Few scholars are more experienced and respected than literary critic Tey Diana Rebolledo. In The Chronicles of Panchita Villa and Other Guerrilleras: Essays on Chicana/Latina Literature and Criticism, she brings together old and new works to encourage “guerrillera” warfare against academia that will open the literary canon to Chicana/Latina writers. Beginning with a brief introductory essay about her own experiences as the daughter of a Mexican mother and Peruvian father, Rebolledo goes on to discuss “the historical development of Chicana writing…the representation of Chicanas as seen on book covers, Chicana feminism, being a Chicana critic in the academy, Chicana art history, and Chicana creativity.”

All three titles are part of the Chicana Matters series edited by Deena J. Gonzalez and Antonia Castañeda at the University of Texas Press.