The focus of my project will be an exploration of the ways in which cultural norms and gender identity intersect in two Chicano novels. I will be analyzing Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya, and Loteria, by Mario Alberto Zambrano and will examine the development of Chicano identity in both texts. I am also applying Gloria Anzaldua’s border theory to interrogate how hybridity and duality figure into the formation of borderland identity. My faculty mentor is Dr. Sharon Tran.