Widening the Paradigm of American Literature: Small Presses in the Publishing and Creation of New Hispanic Texts

Abstract

Small presses publishing Hispanic¹ literature have focused on the eth- nic factor and explicitly adopted as normal practice the presentation of multicultural responses, either in English or Spanish. This new blood, if compared to other trade publishers, served to widen the paradigm of American literature in the 1970s and onwards. The Hispanic editors’ fresh decisive attitude reveals what had been hidden away by canon- making formalists. Furthermore, they open up new categories both public and private, allowing new souls to express and further shape the social reality of the United States. I will analyze how some editors of Chicano literature, especially through Bilingual Review Press and the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press, have helped articulate a strong sense of agency and presence in the United States.² This task of bringing forth printed texts with their distinctive intellectual achieve- ments and their persistent work in the formation of linguistic and lit- erary identities is inseparable from their struggle for representation in American society.³