The Hispanic Absence in the North American Literary Canon

I recently completed a book of interviews (Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers, co-edited with Juanita Heredia, University of New Mexico Press, 2000) with ten of the most prominent Latina writers in the US; Julia Alvarez, Denise Chávez, Sandra Cisneros, Rosario Ferré, Cristina García, Nicholasa Mohr, Cherríe Moraga, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Esmeralda Santiago and Helena María Viramontes. These women, Cuban, Dominican, Mexican and Puerto Rican Americans, raised issues that ranged from the craft of writing to the inherent problems of national identities. The themes generated in our conversations with these women – their doubled ethnic identities, their complicated relationship to their communities, their difficulties in representing their communities and, finally, their work as part of the larger American canon – revealed a powerful discourse about what it means to be Latina American in the United States. After spending two years talking with these women, it is evident to me that Latina literature is a vital part of American literature and should be included in any study of comparative American literatures.