Claiming the discursive self: Mestiza rhetorics of Mexican women journalists, 1876–1924

Cristina Victoria Devereaux Ramirez, University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

In the last two decades, scholars in rhetoric and writing studies have been calling for a greater representation of voices of those from other cultures who participated in rhetorical practices. As Jacqueline Jones Royster contends, rhetoric has been framed as a mostly white, male, and elite, and that these positions distort the democratic perspective of our discipline. Claiming the Discursive Self: Mestiza Rhetoric of Mexican Women Journalists, 1876-1940 presents women rhetors who were participating in not only creating a national identity, but constructing a public identity to insure women’s input and participation for future generations. It closely examines the rhetorical strategies they employed to claim a discursive identity, and it provides a rhetorical analysis positing a strong historical, cultural, colonial, political, and feminist impact of their writings at that time. Each chapter foregrounds women’s writings through a feminist theoretical lens against those of the dominant discourse of the time. The women this study considers are Laureana Wright de Kleinhans (1846-1896), Hermila Galindo (1885-1954), la mujeres de Zitácuaro (1900), and Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875-1942). Through their writings, I argue for a mestiza rhetoric, a hybrid rhetoric of Mexican and indigenous cultures representative of our growing national populations. More specifically, these Mexican women journalists wrote in order to contribute to a national identity situated in indigenous, Mexican, and European sensibilities which resisted any one dominate discourse; and secondly, they wrote to counter the repression of women’s voices and representation in the public sphere. The multiple directions in their discourse created a mestiza rhetoric.

Subject Area

Latin American literature|Latin American history|Journalism|Womens studies|Rhetoric

Recommended Citation

Ramirez, Cristina Victoria Devereaux, "Claiming the discursive self: Mestiza rhetorics of Mexican women journalists, 1876–1924" (2009). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI3371749.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI3371749

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