Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. [Vol. 3.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 23)

STUDIES - András Tarnóc: Ethnic Consciousness in Chicano Literature: The Voice of "La Raza".

ANDRÁS TARNÓC ETHNIC CONSCIOUSNESS IN CHICANO LITERATURE: THE VOICE OF "LA RAZA" I Although Chicano literature originates from the 16

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h century, as Marcos Farfán's now lost 1598 play established the literary tradition in New Mexico (Paredes 34), it had been assigned to one of the "forgotten chapters of American literature" ((Magyar... 751). This tragic historical and cultural oversight was due to a widespread belief dating the origin of American literature from the settlement of Jamestown in 1607, a lack of appreciation for oral culture: a touchstone of Mexican-American literary activity, and a wholesale dismissal of literary modes not invented in Europe (Leal and Barrón 12). The formation of the Chicano social and cultural context dates back to the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which put an end to the disastrous Mexican-American War and substantially increased the size of the United States with the addition of the Texas Territory transferring approximately 80,000 Mexican citizens under American jurisdiction (Elliott 800). Chicano literature and Chicano consciousness are artistic and ideological manifestations of Hispanic America's ethnic, political, and cultural regeneration in the late 1960's. "El Movimiento," a Hispanic offspring of the Civil Rights Movement, laid the foundations of the 61