The Women of Legends of Mexico: Symbols of Unifying Nations and Dividing Borderlands
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33806/ijaes1094Keywords:
borderland, Chicana, gender, identity, imperialism, Legends of MexicoAbstract
This article examines George Lippard's symbolic representation of Mexican women in his 1847 novel, Legends of Mexico. By politicizing female bodies and historicizing their legends, Lippard legitimizes the righteousness of the United States' invasion and conquest of Mexico. The Mexican female bodies in the novel are used to create a borderland that serves to divide future generations of Mexican Americans from white Americans. Lady Inez and Ximena represent those Chicanas whose identities are put at stake as they suffer fragmentation, alienation, and cultural schizophrenia. Through his inclusion of the two female characters in his war novel and their subsequent transport from Mexico to America—a foreign land with a different language—Lippard helps create what Gloria Anzaldúa calls the borderland. The article analyzes Lippard's portrayal of violence that is inflicted upon the Chicanos in the borderland, legitimizing American hegemony and imperialism over Mexico.
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