This critical bilingual anthology collects and contextualizes thirty-four primary writings of understudied revolutionary mexicana rhetors and social activists who published with presses within the United States and Mexico during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-a time of cross-border revolutionary upheaval and change. These mexicana newspaperwomen leveraged diverse and compelling rhetorical strategies and used the press to advance the early feminist movement in Mexico and the U.S. Southwest; to define their rights and roles in and confront the hypocrisies of their societies' patriarchal systems; to engage in important debates about education, women's rights, and language instruction; and to protest injustices in society and construct possible solutions. Because these presses were in both Mexico and the United States, their writings offer opportunities to explore the concerns, struggles, and triumphs of mexicanas in both U.S. and Mexican cities and throughout the borderlands. Mestiza Rhetorics is the first anthology dedicated to mexicana rhetors and provides unmatched access to mexicana rhetorics. This collection puts forward the work of mexicana newspaperwomen in Spanish and English, provides evidence of their participation in political and educational debates at the turn of the twentieth century, and demonstrates how the Spanish-language press operated as a rhetorical space for mexicanas.

Occupying Our Space sheds new light on the contributions of Mexican women journalists and writers during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, marked as the zenith of Mexican journalism. Journalists played a significant role in transforming Mexican social and political life before and after the Revolution (1910-1920), and women were a part of this movement as publishers, writers, public speakers, and political activists. However, their contributions to the broad historical changes associated with the Revolution, as well as the pre- and post-revolutionary eras, are often excluded or overlooked. Occupying our Space: The Mestiza Rhetorics of Mexican Women Journalists, 1875-1942, fills a gap in feminine rhetorical history by providing an in-depth look at several important journalists who claimed rhetorical puestos, or public speaking spaces. This book closely examines the writings of Laureana Wright de Kleinhans (1842-1896), Juana Belen Gutierrez de Mendoza (1875--1942), the political group Las mujeres de Zitacuaro (1900), Hermila Galindo (1896-1954), and others. Grounded in the overarching theoretical lens of mestiza rhetoric, Occupying Our Space considers the ways in which Mexican women journalists negotiated shifting feminine identities and the emerging national politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. With full length Spanish primary documents along with their translations, this scholarship reframes the conversation about the rhetorical and intellectual role women played in the ever-changing political and identity culture in Mexico.