The shifts and ruptures of cultural production inevitably make any schematic mapping of culture a quixotic venture. This book is no exception. Ours are times suspicious of metanarrative and totalization. So to undertake a project tracing movements in Chicano poetry might appear futile. To suggest that this sketch is an attempt to map a “minority” literature within an atlas of “American” culture – as opposed to situating it in its margins or appendices – could seem foolhardy. And to focus critical attention on a realm of literary production as implicated in history and politics as is Chicano poetry might, in a notoriously conservative American society, seem like plunging into a swiftly moving river headed for the falls.

The present project does not attempt anything as ambitious as sketching out the landscape of contemporary Chicano poetry. The motivation for this book comes simply from the enthusiasm (and occasional disappointment) I have felt in reading across various texts that comprise the body of Chicano creative and critical literature. Although the quality and interest of these various texts are perforce uneven (what discourse isn't?), their significance as a resistant “minority” critical practice is undeniable. What emerges most clearly from these texts is the knowledge that our cultural practices have consistently challenged and problematized other critical practices, be they the inscription of the literary canon or the projection of feminist criticism.