9What does it really mean to be a Xicana? This anthology offers a space for the assertion, exploration and cultivation of a proud Xicana identity. It delivers messages about race, culture, class, economy, sexuality and spirituality within historical, political and personal contexts. Somos Xicanas echoes the collective voice of the Xicana community as a whole, while simultaneously celebrating the co-existence of multiple subjectivities alive within each of the contributions. These are a few of the varied lenses through which readers may appreciate the multiple layers of complex identities that make up what it means to be a Xicana, as expressed through the writings of Xicanas themselves.

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This wildly anticipated, multi-genre anthology illuminates both the enduring and the new Xicana identity, presence and culture through the voices of 80 Xicanas, including Xicana trailblazers like Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Irene I. Blea, Carmen Tafolla, and the 24th poet laureate of the United States, Ada Limón. Other contributors include poet laureates Melinda Palacio, ire'ne lara silva and Angie Trudell Vasquez, along with the first Queer/Muxer Chair of el Partido Nacional La Raza Unida, La Doctora Chola, Vanessa Marie Bustamante.