ABSTRACT
This study sets out to demonstrate that the shared history of Chicanos/as and Native Americans in the Southwest, their spiritual attachment to their homeland, and the diverse cultural, tribal, and familial influences on their lives, determine their literary characters, personas, and lyric voices and reflect their struggle to establish a unified bicultural identity. This identity allows them to persevere in the dominant Euro-American society as a unique cultural and social group. In mediating between the conflicting elements that impact their sense of self, indigenous authors of the Southwest can be fruitfully studied as a coherent group that sets itself apart from their colonizers. Some indigenous authors use the expression “the people” (sometimes spelled with a capital “p” or italicized) to designate their group; both Rudolfo Anaya (Chicano) in his novels Bless me, Ultima (1972), Heart of Aztlán (1976), and Alburquerque1 (1992), and Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Pueblo) in her novel Almanac of the Dead (1991) frequently make use of this expression to suggest a unity among tribal people of the Southwest. The name Chicanos/as gave themselves, “La Raza,” and the Navajo word by which tribal members call themselves, “Diné,” which means “the People” as well, can be seen as further examples of southwestern indigenous peoples’ belief in the cultural affinity with each other.
