María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895) was the first female Mexican American writer to publish two novels in English in the United States, and while they both feature romances between Mexicans and Americans (she married a white solider which caused a great deal of strife for her), the narratives denounce U.S. colonialism and Anglo-American racism. She was also the first published Mexican American writer after the war with Mexico (1846-1848), English was her third language after Spanish and French. For a time her work was lost but is since being studied and is believed to be one of the precursors to the Chicano Literature movement. (She also put together the Don Quixote de la Mancha: A Comedy in Five Acts: Taken From Cervantes’ Novel of That Name 1876)
You can purchase one of her books here: Who Would Have Thought It?
Sources: 19th Century Literature
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