Chica Lit : Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century / Tace Hedrick.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hedrick, Tace, 1954-

Series:

Latino and Latin American Profiles

Latino and Latin American profiles

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Americanization.

Ethnicity in literature.

Identity (Psychology) in literature.

American literature--Hispanic American women authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (156 p.)

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In Chica Lit: Popular Latina Fiction and Americanization in the Twenty-First Century, Tace Hedrick illuminates how discourses of Americanization, ethnicity, gender, class, and commodification shape the genre of "chica lit," popular fiction written by Latina authors with Latina characters. She argues that chica lit is produced and marketed in the same ways as contemporary romance and chick lit fiction, and aimed at an audience of twenty- to thirty-something upwardly mobile Latina readers. Its stories about young women's ethnic class mobility and gendered romantic success tend to celebrate twenty-first century neoliberal narratives about Americanization, hard work, and individual success. However, Hedrick emphasizes, its focus on Latina characters necessarily inflects this celebratory mode: the elusiveness of meaning in its use of the very term "Latina" empties out the differences among and between Latina/o and Chicano/a groups in the United States. Of necessity, chica lit also struggles with questions about the actual social and economic "place" of Latinas and Chicanas in this same neoliberal landscape; these questions unsettle its reliance on the tried-and-true formulas of chick lit and romance writing. Looking at chica lit's market-driven representations of difference, poverty, and Americanization, Hedrick shows how this writing functions within the larger arena of struggles over popular representation of Latinas and Chicanas.

Contents:

Preface : what's a girl to do when...?

Introduction : a regular American life

Genre and the romance industry

Class and taste : is it the poverty?

Latinization and authenticity

Conclusion : not even the Mexicans.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 129-135) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822980995

0822980991

OCLC:

911200785