Post-Revolutionary Chicana Literature : Memoir, Folklore and Fiction of the Border, 1900–1950

This book attempts to explain how Chicana literature in three genres - memoir, folklore, and fiction - arose at the turn of the twentieth century in the borderlands of Texas and Mexico.

Three women writers spanning the years 1900-1950 are examined for their contributions to Chicana writing in its earliest years, as well as for their contributions to the genres they write in.

In addition, the city of Laredo on the border is examined as a unique historical, socio-cultural, and political base for radical rethinking of women's roles in the home, politics, and society.

The women - Leonor Villegas de Magnon, Jovita Idar, and Josefina Niggli - represent three powerful voices from which to gain a clearer understanding of women's lives and struggles during and after the Mexican Revolution, as well as offer surprising insights into women's active roles in border life and the revolution itself.

In the end, readers are encouraged to rethink Chicana lives, and expand our ideas of "Chicana" from a subset of the Chicano Movement of the 1960s to a vibrant and vigorous reality stretching back into the past.