The New Mestiza Consciousness in Chicana Life Writing: Cherríe Moraga’s Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios

Abstract

Chicana feminist author Cherríe Moraga’s life writing Loving in the War Years 1983 draws on the author’s memories, personal and collective experiences, and identity struggles as a Chicana lesbian of mixed ancestry. As the daughter of an Anglo-American father and a Chicana mother, Moraga depicts her adoption of her Chicana lesbian identity and her rejection of oppression based on racism, sexism, heterosexism and classism through a combination of the English and Spanish languages and a variety of literary genres which includes selfreferential stories, journal entries, poetry and essays. The narratives in Moraga’s work represent what the Chicana feminist author Gloria Anzaldşa terms “the new mestiza consciousness” in her life writing Borderlands/La Frontera: the New Mestiza 1987 . Anzaldşa’s concept of the new mestiza consciousness offers a re-interpretation of the racial term “mestizo/a” and articulates a state of existence beyond exclusive identity categories. The new mestiza consciousness is a survival strategy that is the outcome of the identity conflict of those living in the borderlands, in the places where diverse cultures and societies merge. The inhabitants of borderlands overcome the dilemma/the state of being in-between by rejecting the dualism in Western philosophy and adopting the new mestiza/border consciousness, which emphasizes the interweaving rather than separation of the multiple aspects of Chicana identity and the need to transcend socially constructed, rigid borders. This article will analyze Moraga’s overcoming of silence and identity fragmentation that is the result of the multiplicity of oppressions she has encountered at socio-cultural fronts in her struggle to embrace her Chicana lesbian identity in the light of a new mestiza perspective