Being a Barbie or Barbie-Q

Sandra Cisneros has become one of the well known and respected Chicana authors by addressing themes of otherness, identity, poverty, and gender in her works. These themes are presented in her short story Barbie-Q with which she also questions the values of the American society. In this story, the ideology of superior perfect American woman which is in the in-group and inferior Mexican American woman which is in the out-group is given through the symbol of Barbie. While doing this, she uses “yours vs. mine” and “your vs. my” comparisons to show how society others Mexican American people, and effective narrative style that makes the reader an observer. The aim of this paper is to analyze how a Mexican American woman writer Sandra Cisneros challenges the hegemonic ideology that tries to manipulate and subordinate the minorities marginalized by the dominant class, and the inbetweenness, being caught between Mexican and American cultures, by focusing on her language usage and narrative style in her short story Barbie-Q.