A good mother of a Chicano family: the everyday practices in the series "Brown Angel Mysteries", by Lucha Corpi

Abstract

Everyday practices are a strong presence in detec­tive series Brown Angel Mysteries, by Chicana writer Lucha Corpi, Based on Michel de Certeau’s theory about everyday practices, developed in The practice of everyday life, this article aims at discussing how the activities of everyday life, such as housework and the myths and beliefs inherited from Mexican tradition, represent a way of oppo­sing resistance to dominant social and cultural practices, as well as their political role as a tactic through which the marginalized communities represented seek to (re)appropriate a cultural, political, social and economic space, acquiring new meaning in the confrontation between the center of power and the periphery. Through the characterization of the series’ protagonist, Gloria Damasco, Lucha Corpi opens the detective genre to cultural diversity, offering a non-eurocentric perception of reality, which takes for real know­ledge that comes from intangible sources, such as dreams, visions, intuition and extra-sensory perception. These non-rational experiences and the presence of fundamental myths of Chicano culture – such as La Llorona and La Malinche – intertwine to present a detective plot that subverts the Cartesian logic of traditional detective fiction.