Abstract
This is a study of narratives of three women authors of Spanish Caribbean origin writing in English in the United States- Julia Alvarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Achy Obejas. The investigation theorizes the function of memory in narratives, used to carve a collective ethnic identity of the specific Latino groups, in order to maintain a continuity of the displaced community. The texts targets the second generation immigrants who find themselves in conflict with a society where they are at the margins because of differences from the dominant norms of society. Marginalization is countered by the creation of a link to the continuing cultures and establishing a collective identity, molded out of the collective memories of the people of the community. The texts look at three kinds of memories, namely the historical, the autobiographical, and the ethnic memory, which are instrumental in the construction of a collective, at different levels- the national, the personal, and the cultural. The textual narrative as an implement to circulate the notion of a common bond between the author, the narrator, the text, and the reader allows for the emergence of the Latina voice, as the subject through the female narrator and the characters, indicative of a social force resisting marginalization, and telling her history in her own terms.
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