Occupying Our Space

The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists and Activists, 1875–1942

By Cristina Devereaux Ramírez; Foreword by Jacqueline Jones Royster

The University of Arizona Press

Winifred Bryan Horner Outstanding Book Award Winner

Occupying Our Space sheds new light on the contributions of Mexican women journalists and writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked as the zenith of Mexican journalism. Journalists played a significant role in transforming Mexican social and political life before and after the Revolution (1910–1920), and women were a part of this movement as publishers, writers, public speakers, and political activists. However, their contributions to the broad historical changes associated with the Revolution, as well as the pre- and post-revolutionary eras, are often excluded or overlooked.

This book fills a gap in feminine rhetorical history by providing an in-depth look at several important journalists who claimed rhetorical puestos, or public speaking spaces. The book closely examines the writings of Laureana Wright de Kleinhans (1842–1896), Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875–1942), the political group Las mujeres de Zitácuaro (1900), Hermila Galindo (1896–1954), and others. Grounded in the overarching theoretical lens of mestiza rhetoric, Occupying Our Space considers the ways in which Mexican women journalists negotiated shifting feminine identities and the emerging national politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With full-length Spanish primary documents along with their translations, this scholarship reframes the conversation about the rhetorical and intellectual role women played in the ever-changing political and identity culture in Mexico.

[Occupying Our Space] helps to establish a dialogue between Mexicans and Latinas in order to further cross cultural and historical borders.’—Hispanic American Historical Review

‘A significant contribution to the field given that little has been written about Mexican women writers outside of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz.’—Cristina Kirklighter, author of Traversing the Democratic Borders of the Essay

‘I admire the way Ramírez lets the women speak for themselves, presenting their words first in Spanish and only then in translation—and in providing the kind of caring analysis that Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa Kirsch adumbrate and recommend.’—Andrea Lunsford, author of Everything’s An Argument

Cristina Devereaux Ramírez is an assistant professor in the Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English (RCTE) graduate program in the Department of English at the University of Arizona. She is the author of the article “Forging a Mestiza Rhetoric: Mexican Women Journalists’ Role in the Construction of a National Identity.” She has traveled extensively presenting and furthering the research into Mexican women journalists.

List of Illustrations
Foreword by Jacqueline Jones Royster
Acknowledgments

Introduction—A Feminist Recovery Project: Mexican Women Journalists and Activists at the Forefront of Change
Chapter 1. Historical and Theoretical Directions in Mestiza Rhetoric
Chapter 2. Las Hijas del Anáhuac: Laureana Wright de Kleinhans and Other Pioneering Women in Journalism in the Late Nineteenth Century
Interlude
Saludo y prospecto / Greetings and Prospectus by Laureana Wright de Kleinhans, 1887
Chapter 3. “Hear Us!”: The Feminist Protests of Las Mujeres de Zitácuaro
Interlude
Propaganda liberal, Manifiesto / Liberal Propaganda, Manifesto by Las Mujeres de Zitácuaro, 1900
Chapter 4. Rompiendo barreras: Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza’s Revolutionary Rhetoric
Interlude
Vésper siempre ocupará su puesto / Vésper Will Always Occupy Its Space by Juana B. Gutiérrez de Mendoza, 1910
Chapter 5. Mi grano de arena en esa hermosa labor: Hermila Galindo’s Feminationalist Rhetoric
Interlude
A la mujer latinoamericana / To the Latin American Woman by Hermila Galindo, 1919

Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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