Lorna Dee Cervantes: A Writer in the Margins.

Chicana literary authors are sometimes thought to occupy the edges of two "texts," their own culture and the Anglo-American hegemony, where they are oppressed and marginalized by sexism and racism. In these margins, however, Chicana authors can dismantle stereotypes and construct new and empowering images of self. As an example of this kind of recreation of self through the act of writing, the poems of Lorna Dee Cervantes can serve as powerful examples. Many archetypal female figures have shaped the stereotypes of Chicano literature, the most influential being the story of "La Malinche," who acquiesces to sexual violation. Cervantes' early poem, "You Cramp My Style, Baby," attacks and denounces such sexual exploitation. In a later poem, "Emplumada," Cervantes' attack on the misogynous representations of "La Malinche" culminates in a complete revision of the character. The treatment of various images in the poem shows how Cervantes discovers and invents new inscriptions for the future. Thus, the second poem rewrites the female-male relationship that governed the earlier poem while simultaneously revising the legend of "La Malinche." (Twenty-two references are attached.) (HB)