Ana Castillo

Life and career

Castillo was born in Chicago in 1953, the daughter of Raymond and Rachel Rocha Castillo. Her mother was Mexican Indian and her father was born in 1933, in Chicago. She attended Jones Commercial High School and Chicago City College before completing her BS in art, with a minor in secondary education, at Northeastern Illinois University. Ana Castillo received her MA in Latin American Studies from the University of Chicago in 1979, after teaching ethnic studies at Santa Rosa Junior College and serving as writer-in-residence for the Illinois Arts Council. She has also taught at Malcolm X Junior College and later on in her life at Sonoma State College. Instead of a traditional dissertation, she submitted the essays later collected in her 1994 work Massacre of the Dreamers. Castillo, who has written more than 15 books and numerous articles, is widely regarded as a key thinker and a pioneer in the field of Chicana literature. She has said, "Twenty-five years after I started writing, I feel I still have a message to share."

Castillo writes about Chicana feminism, which she refers to as "Xicanisma," and her work centers on issues of identity, racism, and classism. She uses the term "xicanisma" to signify Chicana feminism, to illustrate the politics of what it means to be a Chicana in our society, and to represent the Chicana feminism that challenges binaries regarding the Chicana experience such as gay/straight black/white. Castillo writes, "Xicanisma is an ever present consciousness of our interdependence specifically rooted in our culture and history. Although Xicanisma is a way to understand ourselves in the world, it may also help others who are not necessarily of Mexican background and/or women. It is yielding; never resistant to change, one based on wholeness not dualisms. Men are not our opposities, our opponents, our 'other'". She writes, "Chicana literature is something that we as Chicanas take and define as part of U.S. North American literature. That literature has to do with our reality, our perceptions of reality, and our perceptions of society in the United States as women of Mexican descent or Mexican background or Latina background". Castillo argues that Chicanas must combat multiple modes of oppression, including homophobia, racism, sexism and classism, and that Chicana feminism must acknowledge the presence of multiple diverse Chicana experiences. Her writing shows the influence of magical realism. Much of her work has been translated into Spanish, including her poetry. She has also contributed articles and essays to such publications as the Los Angeles Times and Salon. Castillo is the editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary magazine.

She was also nominated in 1999 for the "Greatest Chicagoans of the Century" sponsored by the Sun Times.

Castillo, who is herself bisexual, won a Lambda Literary Award in 2015 for bisexual fiction with her book Give It to Me and another Lambda Literary Award in 2017 for bisexual nonfiction for Black Dove: Mama, Mi’jo, and Me. Her papers are housed at the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Poetry

As a poet Castillo has authored several works, including Otro Canto (1977) The Invitation (1979), Women Are Not Roses (Arte Publico, 1984), and My Father Was a Toltec (West End Press, 1988). Her works primarily communicate the meaning and revelations we discover in various experiences. Her poem, Women Don't Riot, explores the tribulations of womanhood, but Castillo daringly uses the lines of this poem as her "offense, rejection" (line 49–50 of the poem) of the idea that she will sit quiet.

She often intermingles Spanish and English in her poetry, like in her collection of poems entitled I Ask the Impossible. The hybrid of languages that she creates is poetic and lyrical, using one language to intrigue another as opposed to a broken "Spanglish".

Journal articles

1. Castillo's 'Burra, Me', 'La Burra Mistakes Friendship with a Lashing', and 'The Friend Comes Back to Teach the Burra' By: Ruiz-Velasco, Chris; Explicator, 2007 Winter; 65 (2): 121–24.
2. 'The Pleas of the Desperate': Collective Agency versus Magical Realism in Ana Castillo's So Far From God By: Caminero-Santangelo, Marta; Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature, 2005 Spring; 24 (1): 81–103.
3. Violence in the Borderlands: Crossing the Home Space in the Novels of Ana Castillo By: Johnson, Kelli Lyon; Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2004; 25 (1): 39–58.
4. Literary Syncretism in Ana Castillo's So Far From God By: Alarcón, Daniel Cooper; Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, 2004; 23: 145–52.
5. The Second Tower of Babel: Ana Castillo's Borgesian Precursors in The Mixquiahuala Letters By: Jirón-King, Shimberlee; Philological Quarterly, 2003 Fall; 82 (4): 419–40.
6. Creating a Resistant Chicana Aesthetic: The Queer Performativity of Ana Castillo's So Far from God By: Mills, Fiona; CLA Journal, 2003 Mar; 46 (3): 312–36.
7. The Homoerotic Tease and Lesbian Identity in Ana Castillo's Work By: Gómez-Vega, Ibis; Crítica Hispánica, 2003; 25 (1–2): 65–84.
8. Ana Castillo's So Far from God: Intimations of the Absurd By: Manríquez, B. J.; College Literature, 2002 Spring; 29 (2): 37–49.
9. Hybrid Latina Identities: Critical Positioning In-Between Two Cultures By: Mujcinovic, Fatima; Centro de Estudios Puertorriqueños, 2001 Spring; 13 (1): 45–59.
10. Con un pie a cada lado'/With a Foot in Each Place: Mestizaje as Transnational Feminisms in Ana Castillo's So Far from God By: Gillman, Laura; Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, 2001; 2 (1): 158–75.
11. La Llorona and a Call for Environmental Justice in the Borderlands: Ana Castillo's So Far from God By: Cook, Barbara J.; Northwest Review, 2001; 39 (2): 124–33.
12. Chicana/o Fiction from Resistance to Contestation: The Role of Creation in Ana Castillo's So Far from God By: Rodriguez, Ralph E.; MELUS, 2000 Summer; 25 (2): 63–82.
13. Rebellion and Tradition in Ana Castillo's So Far from God and Sylvia López-Medina's Cantora By: Sirias, Silvio; MELUS, 2000 Summer; 25 (2): 83–100.
14. Gritos desde la Frontera: Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, and Postmodernism By: Mermann-Jozwiak, Elisabeth; MELUS, 2000 Summer; 25 (2): 101–18.
15. Chicana Feminist Narratives and the Politics of the Self By: Elenes, C. Alejandra; Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2000; 21 (3): 105–23.
16. 'Saint-Making' in Ana Castillo's So Far from God: Medieval Mysticism as Precedent for an Authoritative Chicana Spirituality By: Sauer, Michelle M.; Mester, 2000; 29: 72–91.
17. Shea, Renee H. "No Silence for This Dreamer: The Stories of Ana Castillo." Poets & Writers 28.2 (Mar.-Apr. 2000): 32–39. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Edu. Jeffrey W. Hunter. Vol. 151. Detroit: Gale Group, 2002. Literature Resource Center. Web. 12. Sept. 2013.

Book articles/chapters

1. Determined to Indeterminacy: Pan-American and European Dimensions of the Mestizaje Concept in Ana Castillo's Sapogonia By: Köhler, Angelika. IN: Bottalico and Moncef bin Khalifa, Borderline Identities in Chicano Culture. Venice, Italy: Mazzanti; 2006. pp. 101–14
2. Ana Castillo (1953–) By: Castillo, Debra A.. IN: West-Durán, Herrera-Sobek and Salgado, Latino and Latina Writers, I: Introductory Essays, Chicano and Chicana Authors; II: Cuban and Cuban American Authors, Dominican and Other Authors, Puerto Rican Authors. New York, NY: Scribner's; 2004. pp. 173–93
3. The Spirit of a People: The Politicization of Spirituality in Julia Alvarez's In the Time of the Butterflies, Ntozake Shange's sassafrass, cypress & indigo, and Ana Castillo's So Far from God By: Blackford, Holly. IN: Groover, Things of the Spirit: Women Writers Constructing Spirituality. Notre Dame, IN: U of Notre Dame P; 2004. pp. 224–55
4. 'A Question of Faith': An Interview with Ana Castillo By: Kracht, Katharine. IN: Alonso Gallo, Voces de América/American Voices: Entrevistas a escritores americanos/Interviews with American Writers. Cádiz, Spain: Aduana Vieja; 2004. pp. 623–38
5. A Chicana Hagiography for the Twenty-first Century By: Alcalá, Rita Cano. IN: Gaspar de Alba, Velvet Barrios: Popular Culture & Chicana/o Sexualities. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan; 2003. pp. 3–15
6. Ana Castillo as Santera: Reconstructing Popular Religious Praxis By: Pérez, Gail. IN: Pilar Aquino, Machado and Rodríguez, A Reader in Latina Feminist Theology: Religion and Justice. Austin, TX: U of Texas P; 2002. pp. 53–79
7. A Two-Headed Freak and a Bad Wife Search for Home: Border Crossing in Nisei Daughter and The Mixquiahuala Letters By: Cooper, Janet. IN: Benito and Manzanas, Literature and Ethnicity in the Cultural Borderlands. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi; 2002. pp. 159–73

Books

1. New Visions of Community in Contemporary American Fiction: Tan, Kingsolver, Castillo, Morrison By: Michael, Magali Cornier. Iowa City: U of Iowa P; 2006.
2. Exploding the Western: Myths of Empire on the Postmodern Frontier By: Spurgeon, Sara L.. College Station, TX: Texas A&M UP; 2005.
3. Ana Castillo By: Spurgeon, Sara L.. Boise: Boise State U; 2004.
4. Contemporary American Fiction Writers: An A-Z Guide. Edited by Champion, Laurie and Rhonda Austin Westport: Greenwood, 2002.
5. Vivancos Perez, Ricardo F. Radical Chicana Poetics. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.