Latina women have been made to believe that their lives and desires are always secondary to the needs of men and children. As a result, many women have developed a martyr complex wherein the measure of their value is how much suffering they can endure in service to their family. There is subsequently a culture of self-sacrifice best exemplified by the archetype known as "la sufrida." This thesis explores the sufrida role in literature while using the history of the author's mother—a woman whose life can be "read" as that of a real sufrida— as a bridge between literature and reality. This thesis discusses works of prominent Latinx and Caribbean women writers such as Judith Ortiz Cofer and Nicholasa Mohr and further analyzes the social and religious constraints that instill self-sacrificial mentalities in women. Through the use of womanist and cultural criticisms, this thesis highlights the complex social paradigms that cause so many Latinas to internalize self-limiting thinking patterns. The author's goal is to expose the sufrida role as valueless for contemporary women.

Puerto Rican culture often includes music as a method of expressing cultural identity. For instance, music has been considered a symbol of resistance, identity, and performative culture for many Puerto Ricans. This thesis will heavily rely on the involvement of Afro-Latin music in literature to determine ways that Puertorriqueñidad can be defined. To do this, I will examine how Puerto Rican writers present their identity in their works to define what it means to be Puerto Rican. These writers include the poet Sandra María Esteves and author Judith Ortiz Cofer. Throughout their literary works, they express several connections to their Puerto Rican identity, and through close examination, I was able to compile these connections to music, feminist ideologies, and themes of resistance and oppression. Using the scholarship of Puerto Rican scholar Juan Flores' From Bomba to Hip-Hop: Puerto Rican Culture and Latino Identity and Chicana feminist theorist Chela Sandoval's Methodology of the Oppressed, this thesis will contribute to the examination of music in literature as defying systems of oppression in Puerto Rican culture and explore the relationship between music and Puerto Rican identity.