A Mexican American woman in the 1980s was expected to be the Virgin inside her home, to embody the cunning and endurance associated with La Malinche while never making the kind of independent choice that would mark her as a traitor, and to perform 80s Superwoman in public to satisfy a society that measured her worth by how completely she assimilated.
The Virgin, the Traitor, and the 80s…
A Mexican American woman in the 1980s was expected to be the Virgin inside her home, to embody the cunning and endurance associated with La Malinche while never making the kind of independent choice that would mark her as a traitor, and to perform 80s Superwoman in public to satisfy a society that measured her worth by how completely she assimilated.