From Private Healer to Public Threat: Teresa Urrea’s Writings in <em>The Hummingbird’s Daughter</em> and <em>Queen of America</em>
Keywords:
Teresa Urrea, Santa de Cabora, Luis Alberto Urrea, The Hummingbird’s Daughter, Queen of America, Lauro Aguirre, Tomóchic, Cruz Chávez, women’s writingAbstract
Within the confines of the Cabora ranch in northwestern Mexico, the illegitimate daughter of wealthy landowner Tomás Urrea would become known as a spiritual healer, a religious heretic and a political inspiration. The influence of Teresa Urrea (1873-1906) would eventually became so widespread that, in the midst of the outbreak of the 1891 Tomochic rebellion, Porfirio Díaz considered her a national threat and she was deported to the United States. In this article I examine how Luis Alberto Urrea’s historical novels, The Hummingbird’s Daughter (2005) and its sequel Queen of America (2011), dismiss long-standing doubts about Teresa’s literacy and political engagement. The novels include letters she exchanged with the leader of the Tomóchic rebellion, reference to her own political articles published in Lauro Aguirre’s first newspaper, and elaboration of her role as writer and co-editor for Aguirre’s oppositional newspaper. I argue that Luis Urrea uniquely represents this particular woman’s words and deeds as collapsing conventional barriers between the private and public spheres. He thus challenges readers to envision the active, yet often invisible roles that women have historically forged in male-dominated realms such as religion, medicine and politics.
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