Feminine Genealogy in the Weaving of Cultural Hybridization in Myriam Moscona’s Tela de sevoya (2012)

Abstract

In the novel Tela de sevoya (2012) by Myriam Moscona (Mexico, 1955), the cultural hybridization of the Mexican narrator, part of the Sephardic diaspora and descendent of Bulgarians, develops through the narrator’s experiences between cultures or what Homi Bhabha refers to as the “third space”. Along with the narrator’s experiences in the aforementioned third space, the feminine genealogy’s orality presents itself as an integral element in the narrator’s cultural hybridization. The oral transmission of culture functions as a space of transculturation which facilitates the formation of the narrator’s hybrid identity. Furthermore, her experiences in the third space demonstrate that identity is a constantly evolving construct. This article proposes to employ postcolonial theory to expound Tela de sevoya’s contribution to the discussion on the formation of Sephardic identity in the diaspora with an emphasis on the role of the feminine genealogy and the third space in the process of cultural hybridization..