De la Garza weaves a powerful examination of the complex processes that work together to
constrain self-expression in a woman of Mexican ancestry. The book demonstrates the use of a
variety of creative and reflexive methodologies including poetry prayers de reconstructed
narratives autobiography and letters to historical and cultural female archetypes of Mexican
origin. This methodology of art as meditation for obtaining insight into the dynamics of
culture is used to produce an autoethnographic study of how one can reclaim voice through
rigorous interrogation of our own lives as cultural texts. De la Garza offers us a template for
a new methodology as applicable in academic studies of culture as it is in the everyday lives
of those seeking to find voice within silenced cultural domains.
