Belief in Dialogue

Book excerpt: The works of Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Rosario Ferre, Graciela Limon, Pat Mora, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Esmerelda Santiago, among others, are illuminated here. By uniting historical, cultural, religious, and literary commentary,Belief in Dialogueis designed to help the student or general reader to more completely enjoy and understand contemporary Latina writing. These highly readable discussions are informed by contemporary feminist and postcolonialist thought about color, gender, race, class, and region. Readers of literature being produced by Latina writers in the U.S. today may well miss the full impact of their work if they do not understand the complex spirituality underlying these writings. In addition to influences from the colonial Catholic Church, Latina religious heritage reflects numerous other philosophies: Amerindian spiritual beliefs, African spiritism brought by the slave trade, varieties of European spiritism, liberation theology, and mujerista theology. In response to this predicament, the author considers the long history of resistance and adaptation to Catholic and Christian colonization, including the reinterpretation of figures such as the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The result is a rich and constantly changing spiritual philosophy that is evident in the content, metaphor, and psychological motivation in the fiction and nonfiction produced.