I love to walk through the library or bookstore and browse through sections I have never read from before. One of my favorite little ‘corners’ in the library is the Chicana Feminist Literature section... and, no, you don’t have to be a Chicana or a feminist to read and enjoy the unique and always artistic works of Chicana feminist theorists.

Among the most popular writers of Chicana feminism are Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga, Chela Sandoval and Ana Castillo. Ana Castillo’s award-winning The Mixquiahuala Letters is the most recent book I have finished and is truly one of the best feminist works I have read.

The Mixquiahuala Letters is an epistolary novel, which means it is told through a series of letters. Through these letters, it chronicles the relationship between two friends: the mestiza narrator, Teresa, and her friend, Alicia.

One of my favorite things about this book is that Ana Castillo does not promote reading the book front to back, like you would a ‘normal’ book. Castillo does not want her readers to be confined to reading her book as a linear piece of writing. Instead, she suggests different patterns - for the “cynic”, for the “conformist”, or for the “quixotic” reader - in which to read the letters/chapters, each resulting in a different outcome.

The story takes place during the 70s and 80s, and depicts the changing friendship of Teresa and Alicia during their travels through Mexico and the United States.

One of the main themes in The Mixquiahuala Letters is that of “home.” Both friends are struggling to find their "homes" and their "selves" as mestiza women. For Teresa, writing the letters to Alicia is a way to sort out her identity and her experiences.

“When one is confronted by the mirror, the spirit trembles,” Teresa says in letter sixteen on page 55.

The Mixquiahuala Letters is a beautiful novel about relationships between women and trying to find oneself in a society where you are either black or white, never "in between".

Ana Castillo is interested in that "in-between" sector of society and writes many other works that deal with this idea: The Guardians: A novel, Massacre of the Dreamers: Essays on Xicanisma, Peel My Love Like an Onion, and So Far From God.