This chapter discusses the emergence of Latine rhetorical theory and criticism in the field of communication. Though the field of communication has long been hostile to Latine-oriented rhetorical theories, methodologies, and topics, Latine scholars and non-Latine scholars have worked to bring Latine rhetoric, concepts, and topics into the field. Though the full range of Latine rhetorical contributions is beyond the scope of this chapter, we offer the rhetorical concepts and methods of the prominent Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa and groundbreaking theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez. In doing so, we develop the nepantla rhetorical methodology and rhetorical methodology of radical hope to illustrate the value Latine rhetorical theory and criticism holds for Latine and non-Latine students and scholars of rhetoric alike.

Key Theoretical Terms: Latine rhetoric, Chicana feminism, Gloria Anzaldúa, nepantla, Gustavo Gutiérrez, radical hope

As discussed in Chapter 2: The “Origins” Of Rhetorical Theory, the field of rhetorical studies holds a troubling past that continues to shape the discipline. For much of its history, the study of rhetoric focused on the formal speaking practices of political or religious leaders. Definitions of rhetoric as the “art of persuasion” (Aristotle 384–322 BC) or “the art of speaking well” (Quintilianus circa 35–100 AD) have long influenced the field and supported this emphasis on public figures. It is only recently that the field of rhetorical studies has expanded to consider rhetoric as a world-making practice. The implications of this newer, more inclusive, and productive definition, however, have not yet been fully appreciated.

To better understand and appreciate why the understanding of rhetoric as a world-making practice matters, this chapter is structured as follows: (1) we explain how the history of rhetorical studies led to the exclusion of women and non-white people; (2) we explain how Latine scholars and non-Latine scholars worked to bring Latine rhetoric, concepts, and people into the field; and, (3) we discuss the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and build upon her work to offer a nepantla rhetorical methodology; (4) we discuss the work of Gustavo Gutiérrez and build upon his work to offer a rhetorical methodology of radical hope. Our aim is for this chapter to introduce students, professors, and practitioners of rhetoric to two crucial Latine theorists of rhetoric.

Part 1: The History of Rhetorical Studies and Why it Matters

For most of its history, the field of rhetorical studies has defined rhetoric as some variation of the art of persuasion and speaking well. In the negative sense, this led some, such as Plato (circa 427–348 BC) to associate rhetoric with empty language or simply saying what people want to hear. In the more positive sense, others, such as Plato’s student, Aristotle (384–322 BC), saw this art of speaking well as a virtue (something good) that if studied and practiced ethically could lead to a better society. This definition continued to undergo refinement and transformation throughout history with a focus on religion (Augustine, 354–430), politics (Rabanus Maurus, circa 780–856), and the communication of reason itself (Francis Bacon, 1561–1626). This notion of rhetoric as some variation of the study and art of persuasion and speaking well continued with the establishment of the academic discipline of communication studies in the twentieth century.

The careful reader will notice that the history offered above focuses on the field of rhetorical studies and not the everyday practice of rhetoric. The reason for this distinction is because rhetoric has always been a world-making practice. However, from the days of Plato to the present, the field of rhetorical studies has long been concerned with policing the practice of rhetoric. As the very first issue of The Quarterly Journal of Public Speaking (the oldest journal in the field of rhetorical studies) wrote in 1915:

In the earliest formal education recorded, what held the foremost place? Rhetoric. And what was rhetoric? It was oral discussion. [….]. On down through the centuries it came, and the first half of the nineteenth century saw in the United States the forum, together with the [public lecture hall], flourishing in hundreds of thousands of communities. The years between 1840 and 1850 could turn out tens of thousands to hear the debates between the Little Giant [Stephen A. Douglas] and Old Abe; they could fill halls to suffocation to hear Sumner and Curtis; they could sustain an active interest in the debating club or literary society, in many a country schoolhouse and village hall. [….].

Then came the Civil War. [….]. Then there entered the new era of state schools, organized and graded systems; new subjects into the curriculum; new social and educational interests; the period when there is too much reading of the lighter sort, too much work, too much play, a thousand and one avenues for self-expression […]. In the place of [the forum and public lecture hall] we have the community dance hall, the movies, and the traveling show. ^[1]

Just as Plato had condemned the Sophists (Ancient Greek educators) for teaching a form of rhetoric that challenged traditional authority, so too did the modern field of rhetorical studies embrace a similar critique of society. Early twentieth-century scholars of rhetoric established what we now know as the modern discipline of communication studies with the objective of restoring formal, public deliberation to what they believed was its rightful place.

The 1915 research agenda promoted by this new field of communication studies, then known as the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking (NAATPS), offers insight into what they believed was needed for rhetorical studies to return to its rightful place:

How does good English function as a means of securing, recording, and communicating experiences?

What part do perceptions, images, ideas, thoughts, feelings, and purposes have in determining men’s experiences?

The structure, functions, and development of audiences, including such topics as: The crowd, the mob, the society, and the army.

The development of speech in the child and in the race.

An interpretive study in the light of modern methods of great orators and orations of the past.^[2]

This research agenda promoted monolingualism, patriarchy, whiteness, and an adherence to tradition (particularly that of European history). This program, the NAATPS argued, would “teach and does teach men and women to think, seriously, enthusiastically, happily, to a certain extent effectively.”^[3]This had the added benefit of making the field “orthodox,” which the NAATPS believed would help improve the standing of their work “in the academic world.”^[4]

The modern field of rhetorical studies began with this desire to reclaim its historical position as a critical discipline of study. To work its way back to the center, the field recreated its own mythic past from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to the present. In doing so, the field sought validation from other established academic disciplines and elite political circles and developed its own nativist, ableist, racist, patriarchal, and classist research and teaching agenda. This foundation is troubling on its own. What came next made it worse: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.

On April 6, 1917, two years after the establishment of the NAATPs, the United States declared war on Germany and joined the Allied forces in World War I. The Great War was devastating in scale and scope, leaving millions dead, countries in disrepair, and the redrawing of national boundaries. This alone would be noteworthy. The massive global scale of the war required the mobilization of the populations of entire nations, which led countries to leverage their established and emerging media and communication technologies “in ways they had never been used before to propagandize entire populations to new heights of patriotism, commitment to the war effort, and hatred of the enemy.”^[5] Public address, as well, was given a role to play in the war effort as the US Committee on Public Information (which was established to “sell the war to America”) sponsored a National Speakers Bureau to promote Liberty bond sales.^[6] Countries that had previously neglected their public-facing communication initiatives began investing heavily in communication research.

By the start of the Cold War, patriotic fervor and substantial federal funding had led to the massive institutionalization of communication departments across the country.^[7] Rhetoric faculty who had just left English departments to establish their own academic departments found themselves joined by social scientists in new departments of speech communication, which was reflected in the changing of the name of the National Association of Academic Teachers of Public Speaking to the Speech Communication Association in 1970.^[8] Though the merging of humanistic and social scientific traditions into a single discipline led to some tension, the effect it had on rhetoric was an upsurge in imperialistic rhetorical studies.^[9]

This is not to suggest that everyone in the field of rhetorical studies happily welcomed this nationalistic trend. Rather, the point is that the field of rhetorical studies’ celebration of the Greek tradition combined with the patriotic fervor that followed The Great War and World War II through the Cold War meant that, with few exceptions, Black rhetoric, Latine rhetoric, Asian rhetoric, women’s rhetoric, and more, were ignored and have continued to be marginalized for most of the history of rhetorical studies. With the exception of one rhetorical study on “Old-time Negro Preaching,”^[10] published in 1945, it would not be until 1968 with Parke G. Burgess “The Rhetoric of Black Power” that the field of rhetorical studies’ flagship journal, the Quarterly Journal of Speech (QJS), would begin publishing rhetorical analyses of Black rhetoric.^[11] An analysis of Asian rhetoric would appear earlier, in 1949, with “The Rhetoric of Japanese War Propaganda,” and then only appear sporadically, even to this day.^[12] Women’s rhetoric appears in 1937, primarily due to the scholarly efforts of Doris G. Yoakam, then mostly disappears until the 1960s and 1970s.^[13] Latine rhetoric does not appear in QJS until 1994, with the publication of “Ethnic Heritage as Rhetorical Legacy” by John C. Hammerback and Richard J. Jensen.^[14]

The point of this history is not to suggest that Latine rhetoricians or scholarship did not exist prior to the publications listed in the previous paragraph—as Latine rhetoric has long existed—but rather that the field of rhetorical studies’ sociocultural norms, political economic interests, and mythologization of the Greeks has had lasting impacts on the rhetorical landscape, including gatekeeping the entrance of minoritized voices. As it pertains to this chapter, for the vast majority of the field’s history, the discipline of rhetoric has been inhospitable to Latine rhetorical criticism, theories, and practices. By Latine rhetorical theories and practices, we mean the following: (1) rhetorical criticism or analysis produced by scholars invested in understanding the meaning and impact of communication produced by Latines; (2) rhetorical theories produced by scholars rooted in Latine philosophies, cultures, communities, geographies, and experiences; and (3) the rhetorical practices of Latine people. This definition is inclusive of the men (Latino), women (Latina), and non-binary (Latine) peoples who identify with the global community that is Latinidad—which typically includes the geographies, cultures, and territories of Latin America, Central America, Mexico, and various Caribbean countries, such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. We use the term Latine, instead of Latina, Latino, or Latinx, as we believe the non-binary nature of Latine is the most inclusive and builds upon the existing conventions of the already-existing gender-neutral terminology of the languages most common to Latine countries, Spanish and Portuguese.

Part 2: How Latine Rhetoric has been Studied in the Field of Communication

The 1960s and 1970s were an era of substantial social and political upheaval within the United States. Women and Ethnic Minorities across the United States demanded social, political, and economic rights, and these demands also extended to academic institutions. The first Women’s Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Chicano Studies programs and departments were established during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These demands likewise placed pressure on existing academic disciplines, such as Communication Studies, to engage with the histories, interests, and needs of these communities. As it pertains to Latine Rhetoric, the field of communication followed the lead of Chicano Studies, focusing first on the rhetoric of politicized Mexican-American communities (i.e., Chicanos) in the American Southwest.

The earliest publications on Latine Rhetoric focused almost exclusively on, as Michelle Holling documents, explaining why the field of communication needed to understand the historical and geographic conditions that led to the politicization of Mexican-American communities (i.e., what factors contributed to someone becoming a Chicano). This emphasis on understanding the conditions under which Mexican-Americans became politicized as Chicanos, and thus began producing Chicano rhetoric, is not surprising, considering that Lloyd F. Bitzer’s “The Rhetorical Situation,” which shifted the field of communication towards studying the context of rhetorical production, was published in 1968. (See also Chapter 5: The Rhetorical Situation). Lloyd Powers’s 1973 article in The Southern Journal of Communication, for example, set out to understand the topoi, or “eminently suitable ‘places’” that Chicano speakers “go to to seek arguments suitable to a Chicano audience.”^[15] He identified these shared rhetorical resources as (a) the feeling of oppression, (b) La Raza,^[16] (c) the robbery of the conquered people, (d) Huelga,^[17] and (e) Aztlán.^[18] Powers believed that these five “major presuppositions” comprised the broad totality from which Chicano identity, and thus rhetoric, emerged. Powers’s descriptive terminology was limited in ways similar to “the rhetorical situation”: both conceived of the rhetor as subordinate to the context in which they found themselves. Hence Powers’s conclusion that “underlying the communication of the Chicano qua Chicano is always a feeling of being oppressed” and a “pervasive feeling of being a member of a special people.”^[19] Nonetheless, his work (and that of others during this era) was important for positioning Chicanos as mediators of change and, as Holling argues, for bringing the work of Chicanos to the field of communication.

Scholarship on Latine Rhetoric in the 1980s built upon the foundation established in the 1970s and continued to emphasize Chicano (i.e., Mexican-American male) rhetors. With few exceptions, scholars of Latine Rhetoric during this era focused exclusively on the public rhetoric of Mexican-American men. The rhetoric and social contexts of political activists, such as César Chávez and Reies Lopez Tijerina, garnered particular interest during this period. Though important figures, the overwhelming emphasis on male rhetors, had the effect of erasing the centrality of Women, Indigenous, Afro-latine, Queer, and other groups who had been part of the Chicano and Latine community, movement, and rhetorical tradition all along. For example, while César Chávez was being canonized as a key public figure within the discipline of communication, the critical contributions of his longtime colleague and collaborator Dolores Huerta were absent, if not erased.

The prevailing use of classical rhetorical methodologies or updated variations of those traditions throughout the 1980s, with its emphasis on identifying and uplifting great, timeless orators (read male), could not conceive of such a designation extending to Latinas. Referred to in the popular press as Chávez’s girlfriend rather than the Vice-President of the United Farm Workers labor union, it would not be until Stacey Sowards’s 2010 “Rhetorical Agency as Haciendo Caras and Differential Consciousness Through Lens of Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Class: An Examination of Dolores Huerta’s Rhetoric” in Communication Theory that Communication Studies would receive a sustained analysis of Huerta’s rhetoric.^[20] So though this era of what Holling (2008) terms the “decade of [Latine rhetorical] integration” greatly expanded the field of Latine rhetorical studies, the studies “produced a narrow interpretation of what and who were associated with Chicano rhetoric” and led to the under-examination and obfuscation of “the contributions of Chicanas within the very organizations led by Chávez, Tijerina, and Gutiérrez” and other male Latine rhetors spotlighted during this period to this day.^[21]

Fortunately, this began to change in the 1990s with the publication of Lisa Flores’s 1996 The Quarterly Journal of Speech article “Creating Discursive Space through a Rhetoric of Difference: Chicana Feminists Craft a Homeland,” which served as the first communication publication to critique the sexism of the Chicano movement and introduced the rhetorical strategies of Chicana feminists to the field. Flores’s article marked a sharp break from prior analyses of Latine rhetoric in that her emphasis was on how “Chicana feminists use their creative works as a tool in the discursive construction of a space of their own” that “runs counter to that created for them by either Anglos or Mexicans”.^[22] As Holling (2008) notes, the decade prior to Flores’ article tended to endorse “rhetorically accepted modes of criticism that left unquestioned the assumption of a unified ‘Chicano rhetoric’ and Chicano identity that glossed over internal tensions within the movement.”^[23] “Creating Discursive Space” was also emblematic of the move in the 1990s towards a more complex account of how “ethnic and historical origins informed a text, [the] socio-political relations shaping the production of text(s), authorial reflexivity, and the need for critics to resist static constructions of identity that are easily unsettled.”^[24] Scholarship from this decade tended to emphasize how Latine communities—in all their vernacular and fragmented beauty—were rhetorical agents and theorists in their own right.

This theoretical shift was accompanied by a critical institutional shift, which makes sense considering the heavy emphasis on Chicano and Latine political organizing during this (and the preceding periods). As Alberto González, Bernadette M. Calafell, and Roberto Avant-Mier note, the “shift away from traditional rhetorical methods” that took full force in the 1990s and embrace of Latine culture “allowed for the development of a new critical vocabulary” that changed the way scholars approached Latine rhetoric and institutional organizing.^[25] This is most evident in two distinct but related important academic events in the history of Latine communication studies: the establishment of the Speech Communication Association’s La Raza Caucus in 1990 and the Latina/o Communication Studies Division for the same association (now known as the National Communication Association) in 1997. The establishment of these two institutional homes—the first focused on advocacy and the second focused on “the dissemination of scholarly work” (though both do serve as platforms for both)—provided Latine scholars with a space to explore opportunities (such as mentorship and sharing of research) that existed at best in a limited capacity elsewhere. These two academic homes have provided Latine scholars with the space needed to push the boundaries of what constitutes Latine rhetorical studies—which is exactly what we see taking place over the next two decades.

Latine rhetorical scholarship produced from the 2000s to the present has continued the shift away from emphasizing elite speakers and passive audiences towards analyzing the spaces, identities, and movements created by and about Latine communities. In the 2000s, which Holling refers to as the “decade of repoliticalization,” this manifested primarily in terms of analyzing political and social movement rhetoric and unpacking the rhetorical construction of Latinidad itself.^[26] The more recent decade, 2010 to the present, continues some of this trend but with notable differences. Recent scholarship has placed greater emphasis on reclaiming the cultural, political, and intellectual histories and realities that were obscured or prohibited throughout much of our history within the field. Contemporary Latine rhetoricians have taken the task of coming to terms with what historically could and could not be studied, how it was to be studied, and who could be studied. Contemporary Latine rhetoricians have been working to show that Latine rhetoricians and rhetorical scholars have been producing rhetorical theory and practice throughout the history of the field. Latine rhetoricians have worked to imagine what Latine landscapes would look like if we took seriously how issues of racism, sexism, discrimination, colorism, ableism, and other systems of domination affect and are embedded within Latine communities. Latine rhetoricians have likewise looked to reclaim our histories with and connections to Indigenous, Queer, Afro-Latine, and other marginalized groups both within and outside of Latinidad.^[27]

The harm inflicted on Latine rhetoric and rhetoricians continues to be felt due to the field’s historical and ongoing reverence for conventional rhetorical traditions and overwhelming marginalization of rhetoric produced by women and racialized minorities. Nonetheless, Latine rhetoricians and Latine rhetoric have created a space and vocabulary of their own. Terms such as Latinidad, Latina/o/x/e, borders, nepantla, testimonio, autohistoria-teoría, theories of the flesh, and other key concepts have become common and productive theoretical parlance for the field. The challenge “is getting those outside [Latine Communication Studies] to see the importance of the work, not simply for what it illustrates about Latina/o identities, but about Communication Studies itself.”^[28] The rest of the chapter aims to confront this challenge by spotlighting the history and critical contributions of two important Latine theorists, Gloria Anzaldúa and Gustavo Gutiérrez.

Part 3: Latine Rhetorical Theory: Key Concepts, Methods, and Theorists

This section discusses the critical contributions of Gloria Anzaldúa and Gustavo Gutiérrez. This section is not meant to serve as an exhaustive list of Latine theorists, concepts, and methodologies. Rather, it offers a primer on important Latine theorists for those looking to learn more about Latine theories, methods, and scholars.

Before continuing, however, it is necessary for us to define what we believe constitutes the core tenets of Latine rhetorical theory. Our conception of Latine rhetoric builds upon the important review undertaken by Claudia Anguiano and Mari Casteñeda of the theoretical progression of Latine communication studies. ^[29] Though the study and practice of rhetoric extends beyond the field of communication studies, Anguiano and Casteñeda offer a compelling set of tenets that can be adapted to articulate what constitutes Latine rhetoric and rhetorical theory. These tenets should not be understood as compulsory or constituting an exhaustive list. They are nonetheless helpful for understanding several critical interests of Latine rhetoricians and rhetorical theorists.

The tenets offered by Claudia Anguiano and Mari Casteñeda consist of: (1) centralizing the Latine experience; (2) deploying decolonizing methodological approaches; (3) acknowledging and addressing the racism faced by and perpetuated by the Latine community; (4) resisting literacy-colorblind language/rhetoric toward Latines; and (5) promoting a social justice dimension.^[30] To this, we would add that Latine rhetorical theory intervenes upon existing epistemological frameworks to illustrate why Latine perspectives matter for our understanding of the world. Latine rhetorical theory conceives of Latine as more than “artifacts” or “topics” of study. Latine rhetoricians and rhetorical theorists make claims on the nature of the political, economic, social, cultural, spiritual, environmental, etc., so that, we argue, our understanding of the world is incomplete if we remain ignorant of Latine voices, perspectives, and theories.

The Rhetorical Concepts and Methods of Gloria Anzaldúa

This section discusses the critical contributions of Gloria Anzaldúa, an essential and influential Latine theorist. It concludes with a discussion of some important considerations to keep in mind when engaging with Latine rhetoric.

Gloria Anzaldúa: Biography and Key Concepts

Gloria Anzaldúa was born in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, in 1942. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in English, Art, and Secondary Education from Pan American University, then earned a master of Arts in English and Education at the University of Texas at Austin. She started her Ph.D. program at UT Austin but left when she was ABD (all but done with dissertation) to move to Santa Cruz, California, to become a public intellectual. She regularly spoke about how UT Austin did not accept her queer identity and that this impacted her decision to leave.^[31] During her life, Anzaldúa was a prolific scholar and public intellectual whose co-edited book, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981, with Cherríe Moraga), was a landmark publication—indeed, one of the most cited collections of feminist writings.^[32]

Her scholarship nonetheless remained ignored by the field of communication until Lisa Flores’s 1996 article in The Quarterly Journal of Speech. Even today, outside of Latine scholars (within and outside the field of communication), most scholars engage with Anzaldúa’s work at a superficial level, often as a passing reference.^[33] This is despite her many national and international honors and awards received throughout her life. Anzaldúa was well aware that she had become tokenized by “whites” and despised that her work was often treated as a “mere referencing and not a deep exploration”^[34] and that, even then, her voice was being used to silence other women of color: “I had grown frustrated that the same few women-of-color were asked to read or lecture in universities or classrooms, or to submit to anthologies and quarterlies. Why weren’t other women-of-color being asked?”^[35] Anzaldúa attributed this to the “old divide-and-conquer strategy” whereby “ethnic groups are thrown a few crumbs in the form of teaching positions, grants, decision-making in hiring, etc.” and encouraged “to fight each other for them.”^[36].

These experiences and others informed her theorizing and politics. She embraced the concept of mestizaje (“mixed-blood, mixed culture”^[37] and wrote regularly of her discomfort with labels, whether they be associated with “race, gender, class, sexuality, or any of the traditional categories”.^[38] The mestizaje, according to Anzaldúa, is an identity extended to those who live in the borderlands:

neither hispana india negra española

ni gabacha, eres mestiza, mulata, half-breed

caught in the crossfire between camps

while carrying all five races on your back

not knowing which side to turn to, run from;

[….]

To survive the Borderlands

You must live sin fronteras

be a crossroads.^[39]

To be mestiza, then, was not an inherently celebratory identity or mode of existence for Anzaldúa, but rather a necessary means of survival.

Though Anzaldúa positioned the mestiza as an anti-racist subjectivity, it is important to note that the concept has been critiqued for its indebtedness to the influential Mexican philosopher, politician, and eugenicist, Jose Vasconcelos. He believed that, if “accomplished according to the laws of social well-being, sympathy, and beauty,” the act of mestizaje “will lead to the creation of a [new race] infinitely superior to all that have previously existed.^[40] While acknowledging that Anzaldúa’s “account of “mestizaje subjectivity was clearly formulated as an anti-racist project, as she highlights rather than avoids issues of racial hierarchy within Latinidad,” Juliet Hooker compellingly argues that her “highly selective reading […] is arguably emblematic of the distorted, or at least extremely partial, use of Latin American philosophical sources in Latino political thought” and that “there are important caveats about the anti-racist potential of the mestizaje that [Anzaldúa] fails to consider.”^[41] Indeed, the “laws of social well-being, sympathy, and beauty,” of which Vasconcelos writes, are rooted in what he describes as an “aesthetic eugenics” or “selection of taste” in which only the most beautiful from each of the races would reproduce.^[42] The result, according to Vasconcelos, will enable the “the Black [to] be redeemed, and step by step, by voluntary extinction the uglier stocks will give way to the more handsome. Inferior races, upon being educated, would become less prolific, and the better specimens would go on ascending a scale of ethnic improvement, whose maximum type is not precisely the White but a new race to which the White himself will have to aspire.”^[43] Failing to recognize this history of mestizaje can “serve to obscure existing racial hierarchies within Latino communities and continue to render invisible the existence of black and indigenous Latinos within Latinidad.”^[44]

If conceived in critical terms, and not as a romanticized, superior, “fifth race,” the concept of mestizaje, particularly mestizaje consciousness, remains useful for thinking through the racial politics and experiences of Latines. Instead of celebrating Latin America’s supposed progressive history of racial mixing, a more productive approach would be to “tread a similar path to the one gestured to by Anzaldúa’s brief comments on how cross-racial solidarity among Latinos and other subordinated racial groups in the USA could be forged on the basis of exploring each group’s internal hierarchies and knowing each other’s histories.”^[45] This would shift the notion of mestizaje from a romantic concept to one that demands awareness of the ongoing history of sexual violence committed “against Black and Indigenous women in the process of [racial] mixing.”^[46] It would require that we “highlight the experiences of those groups rendered invisible by traditional narratives of mestizaje, such as black and indigenous Latinos.”^[47] It would also require “plumbing the fissures within Latinidad—especially those produced by national/regional/and social class hierarchies”—to understand how Latine contribute to the theory and practice of race within and outside the United States.^[48] As Raquel Moreira argues, “we cannot properly honor Anzaldúa’s intellectual legacy […] without reckoning with the aspects of their formulations that might contribute to our [Latine] community’s anti-Blackness.”^[49]

With these criticisms and recommendations in mind, we can now return to the concept of mestiza consciousness, not as an innate, celebratory identity but rather as a critical orientation towards the “breaking down of paradigms […] the straddling of two or more cultures” and the work of “creating a new mythos—that is a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we behave—la mestiza creates a new consciousness.”^[50] This creation and living of this new, anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, anti-colonial consciousness is difficult and “a source of intense pain,” and to better understand why this is so, it is necessary to turn to the rest of Anzaldúa’s methodological repertoire: nepantla, Coyolxauhqui imperative, and Autohistoria-teoría.^[51]

Nepantla

The concept of nepantla is “a Nahuatl word for an in-between space, el lugar entre medio. Es una palabra indígena que se refiere a tierra de en medio, a un lugar no-lugar.”^[52] Anzaldúa came to this term when considering the reception of her initial conception of the physical, psychological, and sexual borderlands, which was so critical to her notion of the mestiza consciousness. Though her conception of the concept in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza emerged from her experience with the physical border of the U.S.-Mexico border, the specificities of this particular border were not central to her argument; psychological borderlands can be present anytime two worlds meet:

The psychological borderlands, the sexual borderlands and the spiritual borderlands are not particular to the Southwest. In fact, the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy.^[53]

Some began to romanticize the concept, perhaps due to a cursory reading of intimacy, and began to inappropriately adapt her work as being a celebration of unproblematic multiculturalism—when throughout her writings she consistently notes that the borderlands are “not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger, and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape.”^[54]

The concept of Nepantla offered Anzaldúa a way of stepping away from the sanitized uptake of borderlands and attempting to correct the problematic, uncritical celebration of mestiza consciousness. Mestiza consciousness, like the borderlands, is not a peaceful psychic space; its awakening and existence is “a source of intense pain” precisely because its “energy comes from continual creative motion that keeps breaking down the unitary aspect of each new paradigm.”^[55] This demands a constant state of self-reflection and self-critique as its objective is to “reclaim one’s voice […] in order to name a source […] of oppression, even within one’s own psyche.”^[56] This journey towards mestiza consciousness is the path of conocimiento (self-knowledge). To better understand the connection between nepantla, conocimiento, and mestiza consciousness, it is now necessary to explore this space of nepantla and articulate the process of a nepantla rhetorical methodology.

Towards A Nepantla Rhetorical Methodology

The rhetorical intervention offered by Anzaldúa is that of understanding how the art of speaking of one’s self into existence is a necessary means of survival—especially for those who live within Nepantla. When the whole world is designed for one’s existence (i.e., those who are dominant members of society), then the art of speaking well or world-making is directed outward. When there is no space for one’s existence within the world (i.e., those who are subordinate members of society), then the rhetorical target must in part be one’s self. To better illustrate why this is so and how Anzaldúa’s philosophical concepts can be assembled into a powerful rhetorical methodology of the self (and community), this section is dedicated to outlining the three stages of a nepantla rhetorical methodology: (1) el alma atrapado (the trapped soul); (2) el recuerdo (the memory); and (3) la imperativa Coyolxāuhqui (the Coyolxāuhqui imperative).

El Alma Atrapado

The first step of nepantla is that of recognizing un alma atrapado, that one’s soul is trapped. This entrapment may be physical, psychological, or spiritual in origin, but the entanglement of the three leads to a severe sense of unease: the sense that one has been broken. This sense of brokenness must cut across all three planes (physical, psychological, and spiritual) for it is that shattering of one’s self that constitutes passage into the borderlands. This linkage, then, though real, necessitates rhetorical reflection to (a) understand that one’s soul has been harmed and (b) make sense of how one found themself in this nepantla space. Rhetorical knowledge and skill as an act of world-making and meaning-making is critical for the borderlands are an “in-between state characterized by chaos and disorientation where individuals experience dissociations, breakdowns, and buildups of their identities.”^[57] Lacking rhetorical knowledge and skill, one may, like a poor soul in the presence of a terrible evil, become enchanted and mistake the silver-tongued words of dominant society for reality. Rhetorical knowledge and skill, thus, is a means of seeing through the illusion and reconstructing the scene of the crime against one’s humanity.

El Recuerdo

The second step of nepantla is listening for el recuerdo, the memory. The listening for the memories that haunt this space is directed both inward and outward. Inward, in the sense of granting one’s self the dignity to feel and remember what has happened to it, what has been lost, what has been moved, what, perhaps, has been gained. Outward, in the sense of listening for the voices and searching for the traces of those who exist (or once existed) in this space alongside you. Rhetorical knowledge and skill are assets for both forms of el recuerdo. Regarding the first, listening inward, experience and mastery of language, logical reasoning, metaphors, euphemisms, and other forms of symbolic creation, control, manipulation, and erasure can help one to remember the self that once existed. Regarding the second, listening outward, these same rhetorical skills can help one to recognize the other physical, psychological, and spiritual entities that walk alongside and against you in this space. The gathering of these memories from within and without are about gaining deeper insight into one’s positionality within the nepantla space and remembering that the loneliness they may feel is an illusion, a rhetorical artifact, and that what they are experiencing belongs to a larger category that brings into being a community.

La Imperativa Coyolxāuhqui

The third step of nepantla is that of enacting la imperativa Coyolxāuhqui, the Coyolxāuhqui imperative. La imperativa Coyolxāuhqui is the process of reassembling one’s self. The reassemblage, however, is not idealistic in the sense of reconstructing one’s self in the image of one’s prior self, as the effect of nepantla is that one can never return quite the same as before. Likewise, it would be a mistake to conceive of this imperative as one of growth, for though growth is a possibility, so too are other outcomes, such as diminishment, decay, or even stasis. La imperativa Coyolxāuhqui is rather “an ongoing process of making and unmaking” without “any resolution, just the process of healing.”^[58] The concept comes from Anzaldúa’s interpretation of the fate that befell the Aztec moon goddess, Coyolxāuhqui. According to the Aztecs, Coyolxāuhqui was a beautiful deity who, as punishment for leading a revolt against her mother, the earth deity Cōātlīcue, was dismembered by her brother Huītzilōpōchtli, the Aztec sun god (and god of war). Anzaldúa retells this story as an example of how “the male-dominated Azteca-Mexica culture drove powerful female deities underground by giving them monstrous attributes and by substituting male deities in their place, thus splitting the female Self and the female deities.”^[59] La imperativa Coyolxāuhqui, then, is the collective act of reassemblage: of one’s self and one’s community. Rhetorical skill is valuable here, for this act of reconstruction means pushing back against the narrative weight of society and (re)telling a better story of you and your community.

The point of this nepantla methodology—(1) el alma atrapado (the trapped soul); (2) el recuerdo (the memory); and (3) la imperativa Coyolxāuhqui (the Coyolxāuhqui imperative)—is to enable the rhetor to offer a more authentic, honest account of society, their individual and communal positionality within it, and to work towards the more ethical remaking of themselves and the world. It is an ambitious, endless task, for the world does not sit idle, awaiting the completion of your reassemblage. It is far more likely that one will never leave one’s nepantla space. Though this may seem fatalistic, and, for many, the experience will be devastating, resulting in extreme poverty, health disparities, political disenfranchisement, and more, the concept of nepantla also offers hope. The hope that even if I do not survive, the memory and trace of my existence might be the strength needed for another to continue living, the strength needed for another to work towards the reassemblage of themselves and the construction of a better, more ethical future. That, even if I never achieve conocimiento (consciousness) of the totality of my condition, the glimpse or fragment that I captured may be the shard or piece needed for another’s conocimiento.

In this sense, the nepantla rhetorical methodology differs from conventional rhetorical methods in that it is a collective methodology whose success is contingent upon the collective efforts of those who have come before and those who will come after. Even in failure, failing to recognize the entrapment of one’s soul (el alma atrapado), for example, the echo of one’s existence may serve as the critical memory (el recuerdo) for la imperativa Coyolxāuhqui. Rhetorical expertise is an asset, to be sure, but it is no guarantee of one’s survival nor success, and it is not a precondition for one’s participation. In this regard, the nepantla rhetorical methodology we have outlined above pays homage to the voices of those whose contributions to the rhetorical tradition as lay theorists and practitioners are all too often erased and forgotten. As an inclusive rhetorical methodology, though it emerges from the unique experiences of Latine communities as articulated by Gloria Anzaldúa, we believe it can be of value to anyone who finds themselves in (or needing to enter) a nepantla space, whether they are Latine or not.

The Rhetorical Concepts and Methods of Gustavo Gutiérrez

Gustavo Gutiérrez: Biography and Key Concepts

Gustavo Gutiérrez was born in Lima, Perú on June 8, 1928. His experience with a severe case of the bone disease osteomyelitis—for which he was bedridden and confined to a wheelchair from the ages of twelve to eighteen—led him to pursue a degree in medicine from the University of Perú (Lima)^[60]. After earning his medical degree in 1950, he elected to pursue his other, primary passion, theology, and become an ordained Catholic priest. His faith had sustained him throughout his struggles with osteomyelitis and so he left Perú to study philosophy and psychology at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium) and theology at the Catholic University of Lyon (France) and Gregorian University (Rome). He was ordained in 1959 and returned to his hometown, Lima, Perú, shortly thereafter.^[61] An influential theologian and philosopher, his landmark book, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (1971) is considered the foundational text of Latine liberation theology. This book, and his subsequent theological work, had a profound impact on Catholicism, Christian theology, and Latin American and U.S. politics. After Gutiérrez’s passing on October 22, 2024, Pope Francis said, “Today, I think of Gustavo. Gustavo Gutiérrez. A great man. A man of the Church.”^[62]. His scholarship nonetheless has been and continues to be ignored by the field of Communication, except for a handful of articles in The Journal of Communication and Religion ^[63] and a single article in The Quarterly Journal of Speech.^[64]

Liberation Theology’s emphasis on the fundamental humanity of the poor and political solidarity led Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) to label him a radical and called for him to be investigated by the Catholic Church’s governing body. Indeed, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, which was led by Ratzinger, “issued two instructions on liberation theology, in 1984 and 1986, both critical of some of its aspects,”^[65] including “an allegedly Marxist view of history, a selective reading of the Bible to focus on material redemption, and a class-driven concept of theology.”^[66] He was never disciplined, however, due to the intervention of “the legendary German Jesuit theologian Father Karl Rahner,” who wrote a letter to the Church stating that “the Theology of liberation that [Gutiérrez] represents is entirely orthodox.”^[67] Indeed, Gutiérrez’s theology of liberation “would enter the mainstream of the Church” as, in 2007, Ratzinger himself (now Pope Benedict XVI) would say that “the preferential option for the poor is implicit in the Christological faith.”^[68] That said, Pope Benedict XVI’s “embrace” of liberation theology would be interpreted through his conservative valorization of poverty as enrichment—which is in stark contrast to Gutiérrez’s understanding of poverty as death “early and unjust.”^[69] The point, for Gutiérrez, is not to ask what the poor can teach us (as Pope Benedict XVI saw it) but rather to stand in “solidarity with the poor” in order to “fight the causes of poverty.”^[70]

Latin American Liberation Theology, as espoused by Gutiérrez and others, likewise had a profound impact on the politics of Latin American nations and is critical for our understanding of U.S. history and foreign policy. In 1979, for instance, the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, a socialist political party in Nicaragua (also known as the Sandinistas) overthrew the Somoza dictatorship. The Catholic Church had long enjoyed a mutually beneficial relationship with the Somoza dictatorship. The Somoza dictatorship needed the Nicaraguan Catholic Church to legitimize their repressive government, which they did by teaching that “Christ was poor. He came to teach us to suffer.”^[71] In return, the Somoza dictatorship granted the Church “gifts of money and land” and “almost total control of the education system.”^[72] The advent of Latin American Liberation Theology, however, inspired “many Catholic students, religious workers, and priests […] to opt for the poor themselves by going to live in the poor barrios of the cities or by going to work in the rural areas.”^[73] This experience led Nicaraguan liberation theologians to support the Sandinistas during the Nicaraguan revolution. The United States opposed the socialist policies of the Sandinistas and, in 1981, President Ronald Reagan ordered the CIA to support militant oppositional groups (known as the Contras) with overthrowing the new Sandinista government and, in 1986, The Military Construction Appropriations Act included $100 million in aid for the Contras. ^[74] The Contras were well-known for their systematic violations “of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, […] launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants, and mistreating prisoners.”^[75] When Congress resisted funding the Contras in 1983, Reagan illegally ordered his staff to continue to fund the Contras through “third countries and private sources,” resulting in what is known as the Iran-Contra Affair.^[76]

Understanding the influence Gutiérrez’s work had on the course of global theology and history matters not only for our understanding of the past but also that of the present. As the Latine feminist and postcolonial scholar, Chela Sandoval has compellingly argued, Western societies are in fact lagging behind the oppositional consciousness that “has been most clearly articulated by the subordinated, marginalized, or colonized Western citizen-subjects who have been forced to experience the so-called aesthetics of ‘postmodern’ globalization as a precondition for survival.”^[77] That is, as it pertains to this chapter, Gutiérrez’s theology of liberation speaks against the authoritative political systems that are presently in operation across the globe, because those systems were first developed and enacted against those in Latin America, Africa, and other territories considered a part of the Global South.

Indeed, Gutiérrez formulated the precepts of his Theology of Liberation upon his return to Perú after having lived in Europe for nearly a decade. The contradictions between his theological education in Europe and the material conditions in Peru were stark. As he would write in his landmark text, A Theology of Liberation:

For a long time, as a result of a Latin American cultural tradition imposed by colonization, theology as practiced among us simply echoed the theology developed in Europe. Latin American theologians had recourse to European theology without any reference to its intellectual and historical context, with the result that then their theology easily became a set of abstract propositions. Or else they made a painful effort to adapt European theology to a new reality […].

All this reminds us that [Liberation Theology] is explicable only when seen in close conjunction with the life and commitments of Christian communities. This connection was present at the historical beginnings of liberation theology in the 1960s and is still fully operative today.

[….]

In liberation theology […] I was moved by the witness of those who were beginning to commit themselves ever more fully to the process of freeing the poor from the various servitudes from which they suffer.

This commitment reflected the experience of the oppressed themselves, who were beginning to become the agents of their own destiny. During the 1950s and 60s we saw the first steps being taken in conscientization, and we saw the poor beginning to organize themselves in the defense of their right to life, in the struggle for dignity and social justice, and in a commitment to their own liberation.^[78]

It was only upon witnessing and living these contradictions between the claimed universality of European thought and the lived experiences of his Peruvian friends, family members, and parishioners that Gutiérrez recognized the need for an alternative theological and philosophical tradition. Though not an exhaustive list, we discuss several key rhetorical precepts of Gutiérrez’s theology of liberation in the next section.

Gustavo Gutiérrez: Towards A Rhetorical Methodology of Radical Hope

The rhetorical intervention offered by Gutiérrez is that of understanding how communication can operate as a means for producing radical hope. His rhetorical intervention must be understood as an onto-epistemic-ethical movement grounded in the material, intellectual, social, cultural, and spiritual transnational histories (past, present, and future) of the oppressed. Though it emerged in response to Western imperialism and intracontinental domination, Latine Liberation Theology is a utopian project rooted in the fundamental power, beauty, and dignity of the transnational subaltern. To better illustrate why this is so and how Gutiérrez’s theological and philosophical concepts can be assembled into a powerful rhetorical methodology of radical hope, this section is dedicated to outlining four stages of liberation rhetoric methodology: (1) radical solidarity; (2) the critique of precritical consciousness; and (3) radical hope.

Radical Solidarity

The first step of liberation rhetoric methodology is radical solidarity. Radical solidarity means that our first commitment is towards that of the oppressed, “along with the protest against the conditions under which they suffer.” ^[79] This solidarity necessitates working with and alongside the oppressed, not as saviors, but companions in the struggle against oppression of all kinds. Indeed, as was true in Gutiérrez’s time, many of us are moved by his writings because so too many of us are oppressed. In saying this, we must be careful not to conflate our lived experiences with those of others who may suffer more or less, or differently than us, but rather to recognize that our struggle for liberation is impossible “without following the development of the most urgent problems and without attending to factors that enable us to locate these problems in a broad and complex international context.”^[80] This requires engaging in a diverse range of conversations and listening to the collective experience of marginalized individuals. Lest this be coopted by those who would distort liberation theology to privilege the experiences of those who feel “marginalized” by the loss of previously held political power, Gutiérrez defines oppression as “the one marginated from society, the member of the proletariat struggling for the most basic rights; the exploited and plundered social class, the country struggling for its liberation.” ^[81] Rhetorical knowledge and skill, thus, means recognizing one’s shared humanity across similar and different experiences of oppression.

The Critique of Precritical Consciousness

The second step of liberation rhetoric methodology is that of working to critique precritical consciousness. Building upon the work of another influential Latin American philosopher, Paulo Friere, Gutiérrez argues that liberation requires that “the oppressed reject the oppressive consciousness which dwells in them, become aware of their situation, and find their own language.”^[82] This step requires consideration of the political, economic, social, cultural, spiritual, and other factors that

1. influence how oppressed people are taught to see themselves and their oppressors,
2. condition how oppressors are taught to see themselves and the oppressed, and
3. produce the material circumstances that led to the uneven development of society (e.g., the production of the oppressors and the oppressed).

As with the first step (radical solidarity), so too does this step necessitate dialogue and engagement with a diverse range of marginalized individuals and scholarship. The point is not to valorize any and all opinion, as “naïve awareness” is the dominant operational consciousness in oppressive societies, but rather to work through conversation and social analysis to identify the real causes of oppression.^[83] This process was in effect during the Nicaraguan Revolution (discussed above) when conversations between liberation theologians and lay Nicaraguans led to a mutual critical awakening: the shift in theological perspective helped free the priests and the masses from theological compliance to the Somoza dictatorship. Lest this be perceived as a one-way influence, we must remember that the proximity of priests to the oppressed exposed contradictions within their own theological trainings, and so the critical awakening was mutual. Rhetorical skill at this stage, then, necessitates the analytical skill and sensitivity to recognize the elements that structure contemporary society.

Radical Hope

The third step of liberation rhetoric methodology is that of working towards radical hope. It is all too easy for conventional rhetorical analysis to operate in apocalyptic terms, as a diagnosis without a solution, which can lead to a sense of hopelessness and disengagement with the world. In contrast, Gutiérrez builds on the work of the German Marxist philosopher, Ernst Bloch, to situate hope as critical to human liberation: hope offers an “ontology of what ‘is not yet’ [and] is dynamic, in contrast to the static ontology of being, which is incapable of planning history.”^[84] This radical hope is predicated on the “negation of injustice, in the protest against trampled human rights, and in the struggle for peace and followship.” Radical hope is a hope for the future grounded in the present, taking “shape in daily events with their joys to experience but also with their injustices to eliminate and their enslavements from which to be liberated.”^[85] Radical hope, as Gutiérrez articulates it, “does not exist in a moment [rather] we must create it.”^[86] This means standing in solidarity with the subaltern and oppressed “as friends to criticize and to help change their present circumstances.”^[87] This means saying to ourselves and the oppressed, our “conditions could change, perhaps not tomorrow, but it is possible.”^[88] This radical hope is a promise, an unapologetic commitment to the creation of utopia, today. This may seem an impossible task, but from the perspective of liberation theology, the alternative—keeping things as they are—is untenable. Keeping things as they are is to say: “we are content with the suffering of others because lessening their suffering is too hard.” Rhetorical skill at this stage, then, necessitates the analytical skill to understand the difference between impossible and difficult, the skill to inspire hope that the work of creating a better society begins today.

The point of this liberation rhetoric methodology—(1) radical solidarity; (2) the critique of precritical consciousness; and (3) radical hope—is to enable the rhetor to operate as a vehicle for the creation of a more just society. Like nepantla methodology before it, so too is liberation rhetoric an ambitious task as there is much suffering in the world. Though this may be depressing for some, the point is not to save the world (though that is its end goal) but rather to make the world a better place for someone or, if possible, many someones. If, as Gutiérrez believed, the face of the divine is visible in the face of the oppressed, we “betray and sin against the Spirit” if we fail to honor and uphold the fundamental humanity of the other.^[89] Liberation rhetoric’s goal is to articulate the fundamental humanity of the oppressed, illustrate our shared solidarity, and offer a means of real hope for the future. Though Latine Liberation Theology emerged from the unique experience of theologians like Gustavo Gutiérrez, we believe it can be of value to anyone experiencing oppression and/or committed to the creation of a more just society, whether they are Latine or not.

Conclusion: A Future of Latine Rhetorical Theory

This chapter built upon the work of Michelle Hollings, Bernadette Calafell, Lisa Flores, and other influential Latine communication scholars to outline the historical development of Latine rhetorical studies. Echoing their work, we believe this history is important for understanding how the field of communication has obscured the existence of Latine rhetors and hindered the ability for those interested in Latine rhetoric to pursue the topic. Even today, though there is an abundance of Latine rhetorical scholars producing exceptional work, it is rare to encounter our work in classes on rhetoric. Lisa Flores offers the following reflection in an influential 2016 article in the Review of Communication:

Writing as one of the few for so long, today, I feel joy—if not relief—every time I encounter a new essay or book that is part of the growing dialogue on race and rhetoric in the field. And yet, too often, this work flourishes in the spaces between, outside, and beyond the ‘canon,’ tokenized in readers or syllabi in that familiar pattern of one is enough. I want more.^[90]

Latine scholars are not alone in this frustrating feeling of marginalization, as the ongoing association of rhetoric with the West, particularly the Greeks, has impacted the production and reception of Black rhetorics, Asian rhetorics, Indigenous rhetorics, and others as well. That this chapter exists here, as part of a rhetoric textbook, is exceptional in its rarity. We do not take our inclusion lightly and our hope is that this chapter inspires students and emerging scholars to explore the rich theoretical and empirical work being done by scholars operating in the field of Latine rhetorical studies.

Videos and Multimedia

Cesar E. Chavez, The Mexican-American and the Church

Paper prepared by Mr. Chavez and presented in March 1968, Second Annual Mexican Conference in Sacramento, California

The speech was prepared during Chavez’s 25-day spiritual fast. It is considered one of his most famous speeches.

Cesar E. Chavez, Address to the Commonwealth of California

Address by Cesar Chavez, President United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO

The Commonwealth Club of California November 9, 1984–San Francisco

Cesar Chavez Speech at UCLA Archive

November 11, 1972–Los Angeles

List of Speeches and Writings from the Cesar Chavez Foundation

Dolores Huerta, Interview (*This is a good one to feature.)

America Ferrera, My Identity is a Superpower, not an Obstacle, 2019 TED Talk

Jorge Ramos, Why Journalists have an Obligation to Challenge Power, 2017 TED Talk

Gabby Rivera, The story of Marvel’s first queer Latina superhero, 2018 TED Talk

Rayma Suprani, Dictators hate political cartoons — so I keep drawing them, 2020 TED Talk

Luis H. Zayas, The Psychological Impact of Child Separation at the US-Mexico Border, 2019 TED Talk

Eva Longoria UT Austin, 2012

Actor and philanthropist Eva Longoria delivered the closing keynote of the 2012 conference  Central Americans and the Latino Landscape: New configurations of Latino/a America.

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Upton, Sarah De Los Santos. “Communicating Nepantla: An Anzaldúan Theory of Identity.” This Bridge Called Communication: Anzaldúan Approaches to Theory, Method, and Praxis, edited by Leandra Hinojosa Hernandez and Robert Gutierrez-Perez, Lexington Books, 2019, pp. 123-142.

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Wanzer-Serrano, Darrel. The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation. Temple University Press, 2015.

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For Further Reference

Calafell, Bernadette Marie. Latina/o Communication Studies: Theorizing Performance. Peter Lang, 2007.

Delgado, Fernando Pedro. Chicano Ideology Revisited: Rap Music and the (Re)articulation of Chicanismo. Western Journal of Communication, 62, no. 2, 1998, pp. 95-113.

Delgado, Fernando. “Rigoberta Menchú” and Testimonial Discourse: Collectivist Rhetoric and Rhetorical Criticism. World Communication, 28, no. 1, 1999, pp. 17-29.

Fernandez Ruby Ann and Richard J. Jensen. “Reies Lopez Tijerina’s “The Land Grant Question”: Creating History through Metaphors. Howard Journal of Communications, 6, no. 3, 1995, pp. 129-145.

Flores, Lisa A. Constructing Rhetorical Borders: Peons, Illegal Aliens, and Competing Narratives of Immigration. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 20, no. 4, 2003, pp. 362-387.

Flores, Lisa A. Towards an Insistent and Transformative Racial Rhetorical Criticism. Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 15, no. 4, 2018, pp. 349-357.

Gutierrez-Perez, Robert. Theories in the Flesh and Flights of the Imagination: Embracing the Soul and Spirit of Critical Performative Writing in Communication Research. Women’s Studies in Communication, 41, no. 4, 2019, pp. 404-415.

Hernández, Leandra Hinojosa, and Gutierrez-Perez, Robert. This Bridge We Call Communication: Approaches to Theory, Method, and Praxis. Lexington Books, 2019.

Hernández, Leandra Hinojosa, and De Los Santos Upton, Sarah. Challenging Reproductive Control and Gendered Violence in the Américas: Intersectionality, Power, and Struggles for Rights. Lexington Books, 2018.

Keating, AnaLouise, ed. The Gloria Anzaldua Reader. Duke University Press, 2009.

LaWare, Margaret R. Encountering Visions of Aztlán: Arguments for Ethnic Pride, Community Activism and Cultural Revitalization in Chicano Murals. Argumentation and Advocacy, 34, no. 3, 1998, pp. 140-153.

Major, William. Audre Lorde’s “The Cancer Journals”: Autopathography as Resistance, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 35, no. 2, 2002, pp. 39-56.

Reuman, Ann E., and Gloria E. Anzaldúa. “Coming into Play: An Interview with Gloria Anzaldúa.” MELUS, vol. 25, no. 2, 2000, pp. 3–45.