Decolonisation and Depatriarchal Narratives: Violence, Power and Language in Contemporary Chicana and Mexicana Writing on La Malinche

2021年9月，大赦国际将公众的注意力重新集中到“墨西哥失踪和杀害女性的流行病”上，作证说，在2020年全年，每天都有10名妇女被谋杀(大赦国际，2021年)。该项目认为，该国的殖民历史和父权制权力结构是理解这种系统性暴力根源的关键。我的研究是第一次通过La Malinche的形象来分析墨西哥的性别殖民史和当代墨西哥妇女的状况，La Malinche是土著贵族妇女，在1519年征服者到达波通昌后，成为埃尔南·科尔特·S的翻译，现在被认为是国家叛徒(Trexler，1995)。我的研究评估了当代墨西哥人和墨西哥人(墨西哥裔美国人)关于La Malinche的文学如何使我们能够解释这股基于性别的暴力浪潮。我研究的主要文本是卡门·塔福拉(Carmen Tafolla)的诗歌《马林切》(La Malinche)(1978)、格洛丽亚·安萨杜阿(Gloria Anzaldúa)的《边疆/新梅斯蒂萨》(The New Mstiza)(1987)、桑德拉·西斯内罗斯(Sandra Cisneros)的短篇小说《永不嫁给墨西哥人》(Never Marry a墨西哥人)(1991)、帕特·莫拉(Pat Mora)的诗集《阿瓜·圣水》(Agua Santa/Saint Water)(1995)和劳拉·埃斯基维尔(Laura Esquivel)的小说《马林切》(2006)。通过与墨西哥女权主义团体las Constituyentes女性主义者的研讨会，我将是第一个对La Malinche进行跨学科、双语、跨界分析的人。这一合作的一个核心目的是将La Malinche的力量确立为墨西哥女权主义激进主义的隐喻。首先，我将进行几次采访，以确定La Malinche在集体中的存在程度，讨论成员是否将针对墨西哥妇女的社会/身体暴力追溯到该国的殖民历史。其次，我将组织一个阅读小组，讨论我的项目的原始奇卡纳语/墨西哥语文本。我将收集活动家对La Malinche作为文化/文学隐喻的看法的数据，讨论集体参与的问题，如语言在传播思想和暴力中的作用。随着La Malinche奖学金(Gaspar De Alba 2014)和墨西哥基于性别的暴力的长期关注的重叠，我的项目将把前者扩展到学术界以外。

In September 2021, Amnesty International refocused public attention towards the 'epidemic of disappearances and femicides in Mexico', testifying that throughout 2020 ten women were murdered per day (Amnesty International 2021). This project contends that the country's colonial history and patriarchal power structures are key to understanding the roots of this systematic violence. My study is the first to analyse Mexico's gendered colonial history and the situation of contemporary Mexican women through the figure of La Malinche, the Indigenous noblewoman who, upon the Conquistadores' arrival in Potonchán in 1519, became Hernan Cortés's translator and is now considered a national traitor (Trexler 1995). My study evaluates how contemporary Mexicana and Chicana (Mexican American) literature about La Malinche enables us to interpret this wave of gender-based violence. The primary texts for my study are Carmen Tafolla's poem 'La Malinche' (1978), Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), Sandra Cisneros's short story 'Never Marry a Mexican' (1991), Pat Mora's poetry collection Agua Santa/Holy Water (1995) and Laura Esquivel's novel Malinche (2006).Through a workshop with a Mexican feminist collective engaged in the 'depatriarchalisation' of Mexican society, Las Constituyentes Feministas, mine will be the first interdisciplinary, bilingual, cross-border analysis of La Malinche. A central aim of this collaboration is to establish the power of La Malinche as metaphor in Mexican feminist activism. Firstly, I will conduct several interviews to establish to what extent La Malinche's presence is felt within the collective, discussing whether the members trace social/physical violence against Mexican women back to the country's colonial history. Secondly, I will organise a reading group concerning my project's primary Chicana/Mexicana texts. I will gather data on the activists' views on La Malinche as cultural/literary metaphor, addressing issues that the collective engages in, as the role of language in the propagation of ideas and violence. With the overlap of La Malinche scholarship (Gaspar de Alba 2014) and the long-lasting concern of gender-based violence in Mexico, my project will extend the former beyond academia.