Hermeneutic Distanciations in Postmodern Chicanx Literature: Utopian and Dystopian Horizons in Ana Castillo’s So Far from God (1993) & Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper (2005)

This essay focuses on the concept of distanciation in hermeneutic phenomenology and its relevance to an understanding of the utopian and dystopian dimensions in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God (1993) and Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper (2005), two postmodern novels that perceive Chicanx history aslant. I analyze how distanciations in these novels open possible cultural worlds that aid readers in interpreting new and/or estranging historical traditions. Ultimately, the distanciations in Ana Castillo’s So Far From God pattern the hope for an emergent queer Chicanx spiritual-activist identity, while the distanciations in Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper pattern a dystopic neoliberal worldview hidden behind decontextualzed kitchy representations of Chicanx identity. Although seemingly opposed, both cultural worldviews emerge through ruptures that occur between actual and possible worlds afforded by the novels’ distanciations of Chicanx identities and histories. Keywords: Postmodern Chicanx Literature, Distanciation, Estrangement, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Utopia

Narratives of Reclamation

This chapter evaluates the proliferation of Chicana literature following El Movimiento. This frames the discussion of the narrative of reclamation in the Chicana novel So Far from God (1993) by Ana Castillo as well as in the Dominican American novel Soledad (2001) by Angie Cruz. Both of these novels portray characters finding out whether ritual is effective in reclaiming their identity. By paying special attention to the novels' constructions of femininity, depictions of the abuse of the female body, and reconfigurations of communal and domestic spaces from patriarchal to matriarchal, the chapter delineates the convergences of a text set in the rural Southwest, So Far from God, with a text set in urban Northeast, Soledad.