Whitening Domestic Spaces: Enacting Female Roles in Anzia Yezierska's The Lost Beautifulness

Autores/as

  • Rebeca Campos Ferreras

Resumen

El objetivo de este estudio es mostrar cómo los estereotipos de feminidad en relación a la higiene y al espacio doméstico influyeron a las mujeres inmigrantes recién llegadas de Europa del Este en el contexto norteamericano de principios del siglo XX. Establecidas en el gueto del Lower East Side de Nueva York y condicionadas por su pasado judío, estas mujeres comenzaron a dar forma a una nueva identidad de acuerdo con el estándar de belleza y limpieza requeridas para una Americanización eficaz y completa. Para este propósito, el relato corto de la autora Anzia Yezierska, The Lost Beautifulness sirve como referente literario que demuestra el fracaso de dicha Americanización como estrategia para alcanzar el ideal del Sueño Americano ya que, según el testimonio de la autora, solo reforzaría las políticas clasistas en vez de cancelarlas. En un intento por validar su adaptación a la cultura americana desde los márgenes de la aceptación social, Yezierska retrata las consecuencias fatales a las que se enfrentan las mujeres inmigrantes judías tras americanizar el espacio privado del hogar dentro del contexto del gueto neoyorquino.

Palabras clave: Americanización, Anzia Yezierska, estereotipos femeninos, blancura, doméstico, Sueño Americano

 

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Biografía del autor/a

  • Rebeca Campos Ferreras

    Doctor in Literary Studies and co-editor in Cuir Madriz, a queer zine which deals with LGBT realities and urban subcultures. My dissertation entitled “America as Destiny: New Identity Spaces in Anzia Yezierska’s Fiction” was presented in December, 2015, at Complutense University in Madrid. My current research focuses on queer and feminist studies applied to contemporary North American and Spanish narratives outside the literary canon.

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Publicado

2019-10-23

Cómo citar

Campos Ferreras, R. (2019). Whitening Domestic Spaces: Enacting Female Roles in Anzia Yezierska’s The Lost Beautifulness. The Grove - Working Papers on English Studies, 26(1), 9-26. https://revistaselectronicas.ujaen.es/index.php/grove/article/view/4061