La Chingada and “The Silent Lloronas” in Lucha Corpi’s Black Widow’s Wardrobe

In this chapter, I engage in a discussion of Chicana trauma studies through an examination of a particularly popular genre, the detective novel. I examine the third installment of the Lucha Corpi’s Brown Angel Mystery Series, Black Widow’s Wardrobe, as a contemporary reframing of Chicanas icons as survivors of violence. Examining historical and contemporary representations of womanhood through the figures of La Malinche and La Llorona in the novel provides insight into the radical storytelling of this Chicana survival narrative. I invite an exploration of how mythology, specifically, gives us tools to understand the ways in which we both shape and are shaped by the natural world how we link our reality to universally recognized signs and symbols expressed through fantasy or storytelling. Chicana womanhood, for instance, can be understood by examining myths, which are reflective of the historical legacy of colonization, and violence against women as well as the reimagining of female agency and strength through cultural production. In this chapter, I look to Black Widow’s Wardrobe as a feminist intervention by exploring women’s power in response to sexual abuse, border politics, and the criminal justice system as tools of institutional gender violence and reimagining La Malinche as a convicted survivor.