Sites of Resistance: Responding to Stories as an Exercise in Dangerous Memory

Abstract

The purpose of this paper was to examine the responses of six Hispanic women to a chapter from Cisneros’ 1984 book "The House on Mango Street" (A House of My Own). This story, about having a place of one’s own, was read to each of the women who were then asked to respond to the story. These women, who came from Me´xico and South America, were able to resonate with Cisneros’ account given its background. These responses were then analyzed from two perspectives: Rosenblatt’s (1978) reader response theory and from the perspective of Critical Literacy (i.e. Bourdieu’s, 1990, sociological model). These results served to provide an entry into future research with a larger subject population. In order not to forget that past, a community is involved in retelling its story, its constitutive narrative, and in so doing it offers examples of the men and women who have embodied and exemplified the meaning of the community (Metz, 1980, quoted in McDonald,, 2001, 259).