| | Race, Sex, and Nationalism in Gabriela MistralLicia Fiol-Matta Abstract Along with Pablo Neruda, who admired and learned from her example, theChilean Gabriela Mistral has been the poetic idol for generations ofLatin Americans. Far less studied is her critical role in the context ofstate power, especially in the arenas of pedagogy and race. The longerstudy from which this chapter is taken from, A Queer Mother for theNation: The State and Gabriela Mistral (University of Minnesota Press,forthcoming 2001), zeroes in on race, citizenship, and motherhood ascontested arenas where queer intervention sustains normative discourse.Mistral assumed positions of power by fashioning herself as the veryfigure of Motherhood in collaboration with the State apparatus. In thischapter, the first of the book, I specifically interrogate theracialized bases of this transnational maternalism, especially therelationship between mestizaje, mulataje, immigration and queerness. |