Abstract

NEWELL, Gillian E.. Teresa Urrea: A chicana precursor? Social memory challenges, history and identity of chicanos from United States. Frontera norte [online]. 2002, vol.14, n.28, pp.103-128. ISSN 2594-0260.

Communities use their past to construct their present and future; at the same time, people's present and future consist of their past. In this investigation, I examine what symbolic role Teresa Urrea, Mexican healer and popular saint around the turn of the nineteenth century, played in the Chicano movement of the 1960's and 1970's. Through the analysis of the formation processes of a collective identity, one understands the construction of a particular social memory and the use of the past in the present. Examining the history of the Chicano movement and related works, I have investigated the ways in which the Chicanos have represented Teresa, what symbols they have attributed to Teresa, and the roll she has played and continues to play in Chicano social memory. I discovered that the memory of Teresa originated in the academic sphere and that the Chicano intellectuals never succeeded in connecting this construction with popular memory.

Keywords : Teresa Urrea; identity; chicanos; popular religiosity; borderland.

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