Conclusion: Beyond Survival

In the conclusion, I suggest that survival narratives are vital to the artistic, cultural, and physical survival of Chicana/o/x communities. And, beyond survival, that, through cicatrix poetics, Chicana writers have carved out a unique artistic space that tells an alternative, counter-story to the dominant cultural American narrative—one that recognizes the continually shifting borders that have shaped Mexican American culture and that facilitates pathways for healing—both for survivors of interpersonal violence, and communities that have been traumatized by postcolonial violence. Reading these works in tandem, taking violence and trauma as a central focus, it is possible to see how Chicana writers generate an artistic cicatrix, more than just a scar, but an area in which the emerging tissue, the flesh that forms over a wound often grows even stronger than before the injury. This amounts to a series of individual and collective acts that seek to change our relationships and speak truth to power. Survival narratives describe Chicanas who make their own fates, write their own stories, subvert gender norms, and continue to struggle for equity of representation, opportunity, and agency.