Writing from the Margins

Abstract

This thesis explores the rich tradition of minority women writers and the ways in which they have expressed their sense of identity through their autobiographical writings. The selected autobiographers belong to different ethnic groups, and the selected texts are: Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl(1861),and Zora Neale Hurston's Dust Tracks on a Road (1942) for African Americans, Zitkala Sa's American Indian Stories (1921) and Leslie Marmon Silko's Storyteller (1981) for Native Americans, and finally, Cleofas Jaramillo's Romance of a Little Village Girl (1955), and Norma Elia Cantu's Canicula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera for Chicanas. I will use specific approaches specific to each writer and ethnic group