Reading Cristina Garcia's The Aguero Sisters as Latina Feminist Philosophy

Through an analysis of the interconnections or lack thereof between gender and epistemology, I present Cristina Garcia's The Aguero Sisters as a text of Latina feminist philosophy. First, I use the works of Linda Alcoff and Walter Mignolo to illustrate the political nature of epistemology and how women and people of color in particular are disenfranchised from such a political endeavor. Then I examine the connections among the concepts of origin, absence, inheritance, and knowledge-construction in Garcia's novel to further a critique of standard epistemology and point to an emphasis on reconnection with feminine and maternal knowledge for this text's female characters. Moreover, a depiction and elaboration of Maria Lugones's ideas of the "coloniality of gender" and "decolonial feminism" in this novel augments this critical examination of epistemology and places emphasis on women as knowledge-producers.