Dear Migdalia Cruz,

My name is Christina Magaña and I am a student at Loyola Marymount University. Currently, I am taking a class entitled Chicanas and Latinas in the U.S. In this class, we are creating a website which showcases Chicana or Latina writers, artists, as well as activists, and their contributions to society. I have chosen you for the website and I am incredibly honored to illuminate not only you as a person, but also your incredible contributions to society. I first came in contact with your work when I took a class called Hispanic Spirit in Drama last semester. We read Fur and this haunting play has stuck with me. As I was thinking about this amazing piece that you have written, I began to think of how some of your themes in Fur are fitting to what we have been discussing in my current class. Alterity is one idea illuminated in this course that I feel is also explored in your work.

In the book, Chicana Art: The Politics of Spiritual and Aesthetic Altarities, by Laura E. Pérez, the word alterity is explored quite a bit. This term essentially means the other or the socially or culturally different figure. To me, alterity refers to the figure that counters the traditional norms of religion, culture, gender, and politics. This alter is described as transmitting, expressing, or preserving political or cultural and gender-based religious differences. In artwork, this is usually done with the altar.

In Chicana art, altar-installations and art inspired by altars has been used for many purposes. According to the text, this type of art can be used to make the sacred profane, to question dominant religious beliefs, to understand the overlapping of the spiritual, the artistic, and the political, and to present different hybrids of spirituality. Essentially, this type of art is concerned with searching and expressing alternative spiritualities. These spiritualities counter the widely held and widely regarded dominant religious beliefs in society. Pérez believes that the altar is the realm where gender as well as religious freedom exists for those who have been socially marginalized. She also argues that the altar has mediated the social and cultural survival as well as the personal empowerment of the alter or other. This idea was a little hard for me to wrap my head around. I do, however, feel like I have a better grasp on what this means. To me, altar art is the land where freedom exists for the other. Pérez describes the altar as “timeless” and “cross cultural.” To me, this means that the altar exists in many different religious traditions. There are altars in Catholicism, but there are also altars in folk religious traditions. In a sense, the altar is all-encompassing and universal. It brings people who are different and people who come from different spiritual backgrounds together. Through altar art, the other’s concerns are expressed. The other is free to reshape or reject the dominant Christian beliefs and the dominant patriarchal beliefs. One example of this can be seen in the piece, Trinity, by Santa Contreras Barraza.

In Trinity, Barraza challenges traditional religious norms. The Christian trinity, the Virgin, and the cross are refigured in this piece. The trinity is refigured in the form of three mestiza women. In this piece, there are two contemporary women and one woman dressed as Guadalupe. These three women are three in one just like the trinity, but they are reimagined in female form and God is presented as a woman. Images of rebirth and fertility decorate the right side and bottom side of the piece. Barraza uses the canvas as a free realm where she can reimagine Christian beliefs and reject traditional patriarchal beliefs. In my opinion, this is something you also do, Ms. Cruz. Although I do not necessarily think your plays can be classified as altar art, I do believe you use writing to achieve what many of these Chicana artists aim to achieve with their altar work. You allow the other freedom to express and challenge culture and society. I see the other expressed in your piece Fur.

In Fur, Citrona can be described as the other. Pérez asserts that the other was often associated with the barbaric. This hirsute woman is seen as barbaric and is kept in a cage. She is treated like an animal in spite of the fact that she is the one who is the most humane and who loves most genuinely. She is in love with the beautiful Nena who in turn loves Michael. I truly feel that you have refigured what society regards as “normal” or “natural” in this love triangle. Traditional patriarchal society may tell us that love exists between a woman and man, but you challenge this contention. Michael loves Citrona, but his love is on the surface; he seems to love her for being exotic. Nena loves Michael, but her love is also on the surface; she seems to love him for his attractiveness. It seems that the only true and genuine love exists with Citrona’s love for Nena. She attempts to act properly, to be less vulgar, because she sincerely wants Nena to be comfortable. I believe that this challenges patriarchy as well as religious traditions that assert that true love only exists between a male and a female. The fact that Citrona seems to be the one with the power by the end of this play also challenges male dominance. The pages of this play serve to refigure and reject some widely regarded beliefs that are dominant in society. Like altar-installations or altar inspired pieces, the pages of your play challenge, reshape, and reject religious and patriarchal beliefs.

In this same way, the figure of Citrona seems to assert another idea explored in my class. Citrona seems to assert the idea of a new mestiza consciousness. A new mestiza consciousness is explored in Borderlands/La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa. This idea can be a bit confusing, but I will try to explain it to the best of my ability.

According to Anzaldúa, the metiza deals with a struggle of the flesh, a war within her very own self. This is a struggle of borders because the mestiza is composed of more than one culture. According to Anzaldúa, she is torn because she is a direct result of the cultural and spiritual traditions of one culture being transferred to another. The mestiza is conflicted because her different cultures teach her different thoughts that may very well be in opposition. White culture attacks Mexican culture and both white and Mexican culture attack indigenous culture. As a result, the cultures are colliding against one another within the mestiza. The mestiza must learn to act, however, and not react. To be honest, Ms. Cruz, a lot of this information went over my head the first time I read it. I do, however, feel like I understand it better the second time around. I feel like Anzaldúa is saying that the metiza, the woman who is composed of the indigenous and the anglo, is conflicted. She is torn inside because she is of more than one culture. These cultures within her very own body are in opposition and she is reacting against them. She can reject one part of herself and accept another, but she is still reacting. Anzaldúa wants the mestiza to act and not react. This seems to mean that the new mestiza will not react against her cultures. Therefore, the new mestiza develops a tolerance for ambiguity according to Anzaldúa. She does not abandon or reject any culture within herself, but rather adopts her “plural personality.” She accepts the contradictions within herself and turns it into something new. The new mestiza attempting to make a synthesis within herself creates the new mestiza consciousness. This synthesis creates something greater than the sum of the individual parts. Anzaldúa explains that this is new mestiza consciousness is a source of immense pain, but its energy comes from its breaking down of each paradigm. This means straddling multiple cultures according to Anzaldúa. It also means transcending duality. If I were to summarize this idea, I would say it means healing the split at the very core of our beings. We are often broken up into male and female, white and Mexican. To me, the new mestiza consciousness means overcoming and transcending these dualities and no longer allowing them to control us. I believe this is what Anzaldúa is trying to tell us. I also believe, as I mentioned earlier, that Citrona is an image of this.

The figure of Citrona that you created is one that transcends duality. In my opinion, she is neither human nor animal, but at the same time she is both. She is treated like an animal, but has human traits. While she embraces her animalistic side in the cage and in the manner in which her love for Nena eventually leads to Nena’s death, her constant desire for genuine and unadulterated love is at her very core. She consistently straddles the border between animal and human and embraces both. In this way, I feel like Citrona is an example of this new mestiza consciousness in spite of the fact that this figure does not directly deal with culture.

I do sincerely believe that your work illuminates some of the themes we are currently discussing in my class. Through your work, I truly feel like I have been challenged. I have begun to question what is regarded as “beautiful” and what is regarded as “barbaric” in society. Naturally, you do this in a different manner than the Chicana artists have done in their altar-installations, but you also aim to challenge what is culturally and religiously accepted. Like Anzaldúa, you force me to deconstruct my being and to straddle those two territories that seem to be in opposition. In Anzaldúa’s discussion, this territory is the Mexican and anglo and, in yours, this territory is the human and the animalistic. I am so grateful that I have been exposed to your work. Thank you for your voice and for challenging me to accept my own; I am so grateful.

Sincerely,

Christina Magaña