This essay seeks to situate Eugenio Aguirre's novel, "Isabel Moctezuma," in the ongoing intertextual debate over the place of la Malinche in Mexican history and consciousness. As the title of the novel suggests, the protagonist is not Malinche, but rather another indigenous woman, the first-born daughter of the Aztec emperor, Moctezuma…

Dominican-American writer Julia Alvarez's works demonstrate varying degrees of self-representation. Crucial to the ongoing process of identity construction that takes place in Alvarez's novels is the figure of the mother, who at once facilitates and threatens the daughter's negotiation of an autonomous identity. In both Alvarez's own life and in…