La Llorona

Josie Mendez-Negrete’s novel, Las Hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, is a very disturbing tale about brutal domestic abuse and incest.  Negrete’s novel is an autobiography regarding experiences of incest in a working-class Mexican American family.  It is Josie Mendez-Negrete’s story of how she, her siblings, and her mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  “Las Hijas de Juan" is told chronologically, from the time Mendez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father 's brutal legacy. It is a upsetting story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the

The mythical rewrite is necessary to the demands of rewriting ideological and cultural norms that manage the theoretical framework. In Chicana/o culture three female shapes, La Malinche, La Llorona, and La Virgen de Gudalupe, separate the cultural borders of female behavior. Gloria Anzaldua proclaims in the Borderlands/La Frontera,

As one can see, “La China” was the person of interest. The author seemed to be focused on the influence of how society viewed Mexican woman due to their appearance and their living circumstances. She was a woman who fed

In the story "Woman Hollering Creek" Sandra Cisneros discusses the issues of living life as a married woman through a character named Cleofilas; a character who is married to a man who abuses her physically and mentally .Cisneros reveals the way the culture puts a difference between a male and a female, men above women. Cisneros has been famous about writing stories about the latino culture and how women are treated; she explain what they go through as a child, teen and when they are married; always dominated by men because of how the culture has been adapted. "Woman Hollering Creek" is one of the best examples. A character who grows up without a mother and who has no one to guid and give her advise about life.

La Otra Conquista was set in 1520 in colonial Latin America. The story focuses on Topiltzin, a young Aztec scribe and son of Moctezuma and his struggle with religion during the conquest. A Spanish Friar named Diego makes it his mission to convert Topiltzin into civilised Christianity. Hernan Cortes who is the voice of power in Tenochtitlan grants Friar Diego his wish to take Topiltzin, who is now called Tomas by the Spanish, to the mission. Topiltzin must learn how to navigate this new world while still holding to his own culture. Struggling against both spiritual and personal difficulties, Topiltzin tries to show Friar Diego how similar Christian beliefs are to the Aztec beliefs. Overall, the film stays fairly true to history with some exceptions that director used to move the storyline forward. Religion played a key role in the film as it did in the conquest itself. The Spanish conquistadors and friars were there for converting the Aztec to Christianity through whatever means necessary. Whereas the Native Americans were trying to hold onto their beliefs and culture throughout the horrific takeover. In order to communicate their wishes, the Spanish needed someone who could translate so they taught Native Americans to speak Spanish who could then communicate into the tribal language. The most famous of these was La Malinche, who is referenced in the film although at this time is her replacement, Dona Isabel or Tecuichpo. The film is fairly accurate to how this would have looked historically. The conquistadors are appropriately harsh, cruel and violent. At any moment trying to exert their power over the Native Americans and quick to subdue. In summary, La Otra Conquista was a fairly historically accurate film that portrayed the tension and violence of the time.

La Llorona real name was Maria. Maria was a very beautiful mexican women with long thick black shiny hair and also very tall and skinny. She wore a white gown at all times and also with bare feet. She is very basic but not on the inside. She had two small sons that took up most of her evening time but still loved them like they were one and only.

Clo grew up in a time when the gender roles for Mexican women were more traditional and her father really only expected her to get married and not much else. Her father actually arranged for her to be married to a wealthy man that was her father’s age. All Clo wanted to do was go to art school in Paris but her father ignored her pleas. On the day of the wedding, Clo came down the stairs naked and embarrassed her father so much so that he sent her away to the art school in Paris with money to help keep her away.

The story describes the experiences of a young women named Cleofilas. She grew up with six brothers and had no mother. So therefore, she learned how to be a woman through watching telenovelas. She believes that to be a woman she only needs to find true love and have a “happily ever after”. Later she meets a man named Juan and they eventually fall in love and get married.

14. La Llorona – Is based on an old Hispanic urban legend revolving around the ghost of a woman who drowned her children in a river. She is also known as “The Weeping Woman”, is said to let out deep cries. This story is often used by parents to scare children from wandering the streets at night.

What is ironic is that although the Spanish felt that Mexico’s population had to be converted because they were uncivilized and inferior, "mestizaje, the product of racial interbreeding with Indian, black, and mixed-blood women," took place. As a result, Mexicans share a rich mestizo cultural heritage of Spanish, Indian, and African origins. By raping the uncivilized Other, the Spaniards were in turn making themselves uncivilized. Those women represented nothing more but the medium through which the Spanish could vent their sexual desires. This was a major problem that Mexican women had to encounter.

The legend, La Llorona or the weeping woman is one of the best known classic Hispanic tales. Many versions of La Llorona are told universally, but has origin roots from Mexico. This folklore typically involves a restless, ghostly entity as a beautiful lady dressed in white who wanders at night and is seen or heard wailing for her dead children. Because of a heartbreak la Llorona killed her own children. It is said that her soul now wanders sadly calling her children appearing mysteriously in different areas especially along rivers, oceans or other bodies of water. Many believe myths or legends are only for entertainment, but some can have an underlying message.

There are many names for Our Lady of Guadalupe like the Virgin of Guadalupe, and Tonantzin, but they all mean the goddess that protected the people and came to Juan Diego. Over thousands of years the story of Tonantzin, what the native Aztec people called their Virgin Mother Mary, has been passed down and celebrated in the Mexican culture for all of the good and protection that they believe she has brought them. In Rodolfo Corky Gonzales’ epic poem “Yo Soy Joaquin” he references this Aztec goddess, Tonantzin because she is a religious figure, she was considered a native and she is a symbol of independence.

Sandra Cisneros’s short story “Never Marry a Mexican” deals heavily with the concept of myth in literature, more specifically the myth La Malinche, which focuses on women, and how their lives are spun in the shadows on men (Fitts). Myths help power some of the beliefs of entire cultures or civilizations. She gives the reader the mind of a Mexican-American woman who seems traitorous to her friends, family and people she is close to. This causes destruction in her path in the form of love, power, heartbreak, hatred, and an intent to do harm to another, which are themes of myth in literature. The unreliable narrator of this story was created in this story with the purpose to show her confusion and what coming from two completely different

The situation of women in the pre-Columbian era was like any other culture because men had power. The woman lacked rights, equality and autonomy. Often, women were treated as an object. In the case of one of the most developed pre-Columbian civilizations, the Aztecs, a situation occurred with the rights of women with Dona Marina, also known as the Malinche. She was a girl of the Aztec culture, who after a clash between tribes was surrender as a slave, because that was the tradition of those times. “Later, Malinche was again ceded as a slave, but this time to Hernan Cortes by the cacique of Tabasco, along with 19 other women, some pieces of another and a set of blankets” (Castillo, 2014). Afterwards, Hernan Cortes learned that Malinche spoke several languages and did not hesitate to use her as an interpreter in order to unite alliances with the indigenous peoples conquered by the Aztecs, thus facilitating the conquest of the empire.

Anachronologically deemed a feminist for her writings, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz stood in the New World as a defiant, female Catholic. Through her work, she displays her head-strong character, illuminating the hypocrisy that was flourishing in patriarchal Mexico while simultaneously creating metaphors that clearly showed how she viewed her situation. Moreover, through extenstive allusions, she displays her aptitude, proving that she had one true love in life: the love for learning. Perhaps doomed from the start because of her sex, any time Sor Juana delved into her passion she was bound to hear insolence from a traditional member of society, namely the Bishop of Puebla,