Abstracts Womens Studies

"Las flores siempre ganan": Mexican American women writers of the Arizona desert

by Susana De la Pena

This dissertation is a study of the Arizona Mexican American women writers – las arizonenses – of the twentieth century, with special emphasis on the works by Eva Antonia Wilbur-Cruce and Patricia Preciado Martin. A primary focus of the dissertation is the ways in which these writers relate to their physical and cultural landscapes. A comparative analysis is made between Wilbur-Cruce who responds to a critical time of transition for Mexican American rancheros moving from rural to urban areas at the turn of the century, and Preciado Martin, who focuses on the neo-colonization and growing tourism of Tucson and surrounding areas during the second half of the twentieth century. Playwright Silviana Wood and poet Patti Blanco are studied for the contributions they make to the writing about life in a small Arizona mining community and the Tucson Mexican American barrio, respectively.