Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana by Demetria Martinez

The following is ripped straight from my notes from lectures at UCLA from Prof. Limon, as well as some of my own observations about Confessions of a Berlitz-Tape Chicana by Demetria Martinez. I hope these notes are helpful in suggesting things to look for as you read the text.

Martinez’ essay collection is a great example of what it means to live in a rapidly shifting society; in the new millennium, ideas of health, wealth, science and religion change as quickly as the skies over New England. Further, Martinez layers the issues of being female over these other complex topics, as well as the questions of living on the Frontera

It’s a series of funny personal essays. Well, not all of them are funny but the memorable ones are. She talks about human rights issues in the US: meal vouchers to give the homeless in lieu of spare change, universal health care, the debate over the use of the Spanish language in schools, the divide between those who are “more Mexican than you” and the standard issue Chicana.

She debates the choice of title in an essay called “By Any Other Name,” deciding in turn to be Latina “to promote pan-American unity”, Mexican because she likes that it “makes people flinch” also Mexican American caz everybody else is one, and Hispanic is fine in general for those who “couldn't’t care less about the debate over naming but who know they’d better get out and vote because right now they are screwed: low wages, substandard education, no health insurance, over-represented in prisons and military uniforms.”