ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy [Hardcover]

ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature analyzes novels by the acclaimed Chicana YA writers Jo Ann Yolanda Hern?ndez, Isabel Quintero, Ashley Hope P?rez, Erika S?nchez, Guadalupe Garc?a McCall, and Patricia Santana. Combining the term Chicana with nerd, Dr. Herrera coins the term ChicaNerd to argue how the young women protagonists in these novels voice astute observations of their identities as nonwhite teenagers, specifically through a lens of nerdinessa reclamation of brown girl self-love for being a nerd. In analyzing these ChicaNerds, the volume examines the reclamation and powerful acceptance of ones nerdy Chicana self. While popular culture and mainstream media have shaped the well-known figure of the nerd as synonymous with white maleness, Chicana YA literature subverts the nerd stereotype through its negation of this identity as always white and male. These ChicaNerds unite their burgeoning sociopolitical consciousness as young nonwhite girls with their nerdy traits of bookishness, math and literary intelligence, poetic talents, and love of learning. Combining the sociopolitical consciousness of Chicanisma with one aligned to the well-known image of the nerd, ChicaNerds learn to navigate the many complicated layers of coming to an empowered declaration of themselves as smart Chicanas.

Introduction: ChicaNerds in Chicana Young Adult Literature: Brown and Nerdy

Chapter One: Not Your Nerd or At-Risk Chicana Student: On ChicaNerds and Stereotypes

Chapter Two: Those White Girls Dont Like It : Community and ChicaNerd Feminist Resistance in Jo Ann Yolanda Hern?ndezs White Bread Competition

Chapter Three: The College Girl from the Barrio : Calculus and ChicaNerdiness in What Can(t) Wait

Chapter Four: Theater and Chicana Poetic Development in Guadalupe Garc?a McCalls &llÃw