Postmodern Ethnicity in Sandra Cisneros’ Caramelo: Hybridity, Spectacle, and Memory in the Nomadic Text

Year 2000, Issue: 12, 3 - 12, 01.10.2000

Ellen Mccracken

Abstract

Chicana writer Sandra Cisneros poses under a hot-pink parasol for a picture outside her purple house in San Antonio, wearing a flowered Mexican blouse, black short-shorts, and a red rebozo. For other appearances she wears Virgin of Guadalupe earrings, an ornate antique Oaxacan skirt, or a china poblana costume. She poses in a Mexican folkloric dress in a publicity photo for an appearance at the University of Southern California in 2002, and in a rebozo for the back cover of the first edition of Woman Hollering Creek. She remakes herself as a Chicana vamp on earlier book covers such as My Wicked Wicked Ways and Loose Woman, and for Angel Rodríguez-Díaz’s “Portrait of Sandra Cisneros” housed in the Smithsonian Museum. In another photo, she lowers her rebozo to display her “Buddahlupe” tattoo on her upper arm. Her bright red truck has zarape seat covers and a license plate reading “AY TU.”

Keywords

Postmodern, Ethnicity, Sandra Cisneros

References

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