Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism American Literature Readings in the 21st Century Series Editor: Linda Wagner-Martin

American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States.

Published by Palgrave Macmillan: Freak Shows in Modern American Imagination: Constructing the Damaged Body from Willa Cather to Truman Capote By Thomas Fahy Arab American Literary Fictions, Cultures, and Politics By Steven Salaita Women & Race in Contemporary U.S. Writing: From Faulkner to Morrison By Kelly Lynch Reames American Political Poetry in the 21st Century By Michael Dowdy Science and Technology in the Age of Hawthorne, Melville, Twain, and James: Thinking and Writing Electricity By Sam Halliday F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Racial Angles and the Business of Literary Greatness By Michael Nowlin Sex, Race, and Family in Contemporary American Short Stories By Melissa Bostrom Democracy in Contemporary U.S. Women’s Poetry By Nicky Marsh James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence By Piotr K. Gwiazda Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism Edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez

List of Previous Publications Lyn Di Iorio Sandín. Killing Spanish: Literary Essays on Ambivalent U.S. Latino/a Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) Contemporary U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism

Edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez CONTEMPORARY U.S. LATINO/A LITERARY CRITICISM Copyright © Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez, 2007. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-1-4039-7999-5 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-53862-1 ISBN 978-0-230-60926-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230609266 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Contemporary U.S. Latino/a literary criticism / edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez. p. cm.—(American literature readings in the 21st century) Includes bibliographical references.

1. American literature—Hispanic American authors—History and criticism. 2. American literature—Hispanic American authors—History and criticism—Theory, etc. 3. American literature—20th century— History and criticism. 4. American literature—21st century—History and criticism. 5. Hispanic Americans—Intellectual life. 6. Hispanic Americans in literature. I. Sandín, Lyn Di Iorio II. Perez, Richard, 1969– PS153.H56C67 2007 810.9Ј868073—dc22 2007003548 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: November 2007 10987654321 A mi endiablado Pitirre 51: que encuentres y derrotes a tu guaraguao LDS

For my beloved father, Ricardo Perez: advisor, friend, and best domino partner. His spirit persists in my life. And for my loving mother, Ana Cordero, who taught me an ethics of hospitality. RP This page intentionally left blank Contents

About the Contributors ix Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction New Waves in U.S. Latino/a Literary Criticism 1 Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez

Part I Desire for the Other 1 The Latino Scapegoat: Knowledge through Death in Short Stories by Joyce Carol Oates and Junot Díaz 15 Lyn Di Iorio Sandín 2 Alternative Visions and the Souvenir Collectible in Nelly Rosario’s Song of the Water Saints 35 Victoria A. Chevalier

Part II Afro-Latino/a Poetics 3 Spirited Identities: Creole Religions, Creole/U.S. Latina Literature, and the Initiated Reader 63 Margarite Fernández Olmos 4 Racial Spills and Disfigured Faces in Piri Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets and Junot Díaz’s “Ysrael” 93 Richard Perez

Part III Archives, Histories, and Genealogies 5 The Once and Future Latino: Notes Toward a Literary History Todavía Para Llegar 115 Kirsten Silva Gruesz 6 Hurricanes, Magic, Science, and Politics in Cristina García’s The Agüero Sisters 143 William Luis viii CONTENTS

7 Latin Americans and Latinos: Terms of Engagement 165 Román de la Campa 8 “Inheriting” Exile: Cuban-American Writers in the Diaspora 183 Andrea O’Reilly Herrera

Part IV Ideology and Labor 9 “So Your Social is Real?” Vernacular Theorists and Economic Transformation 209 Mary Pat Brady 10 Oscar Hijuelos: Writer of Work 227 Rodrigo Lazo 11 Mass Production of the Heartland: Cuban American Lesbian Camp in Achy Obejas’s “Wrecks” 247 María DeGuzmán

Index 277 About the Contributors

Victoria A. Chevalier is an Assistant Professor of English literature at Furman University and the Director of the black cultures in the Americas Concentration. Her current project focuses on sexuality and materiality in the emplotment of the Moses and Caliban myths in African American and Caribbean literatures. María DeGuzmán is Associate Professor of English and Director of Latina/o studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is the author of the book Spain’s Long Shadow: The Black Legend, Off-Whiteness, and Anglo-American Empire (University of Minnesota Press, 2005). She is also the author of published articles and essays on the work of Ana Castillo (in Aztlán), Graciela Limón (in Revista Iberoamericana), Rane Ramón Arroyo, John Rechy, and Floyd Salas. Currently, she is working on a second book project concerning Latina/o aesthetics of night and is continuing to produce photo–text work as Camera Query (http://www.cameraquery.com), both solo and in collaboration with colleagues and friends. Román de la Campa is the Edwin B. and Leonore R. Williams Professor of Romance Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. His publications take a comparative view of Latin American, American, and Latino literatures, theory, and other cultural practices. They include nearly a hundred essays published in the United States, Latin America, and Europe, as well as the following recent books: Late Imperial Cultures, co-edited (Verso, 1995); America Latina y sus comunidades discursivas: cultura y literature en la era global (Caracas, 1999); Latin Americanism (Minnesota University Press, 2000); Cuba on My Mind: Journeys to a Severed Nation (Londres, Verso, 2001); América Latina: Tres Interpretaciones actuales sobre su estudio, con Ignacio Sosa y Enrique Camacho (Universidad Autónoma de México, Edición especial, 2004); Nuevas cartografias latinoameri- canas (to appear in Letras Cubanas, Havana, 2006). His next book, Split-States and Global Imaginaries, is in progress and is scheduled to appear with Verso in 2007. x ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Lyn Di Iorio Sandín is the author of Killing Spanish: Literary Essays on Ambivalent U.S. Latino/a Identity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004). She has just finished her first novel called Outside the Bones. Her short stories have been published in The Bilingual Review, The Hogtown Creek Review, and The Texas Review, and in other journals. Her short story “Queen of Colomer” was short-listed for the 2002 Pirates Alley William Faulkner Short Story Prize. She teaches at The City College of New York. Margarite Fernández Olmos is Professor of Spanish at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is the author/co-editor of numerous work on Caribbean and U.S. Latino literatures including Sacred Possessions: Vodou, Santería, Obeah and the Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 1997), Healing Cultures: Art and Religion as Curative Practices in the Caribbean and its Diaspora (Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), and Creole Religions of the Caribbean: An Introduction from Vodou and Santería to Obeah and Espiritismo (New York University Press, 2003) with Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition from 1542 to the Present (Mariner Books, 1997) and U.S. Latino Literature: A Critical Guide for Students and Teachers (Greenwood Press, 2000) with Harold Augenbraum. Rodrigo Lazo is Associate Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Writing to Cuba: Filibustering and Cuban Exiles in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2005). His articles have appeared in numerous journals and collections, including American Literature and American Literary History. William Luis is the Chancellor’s Professor of Spanish at Vanderbilt University. Luis has published twelve books and more than one hun- dred scholarly articles. His authored books include Literary Bondage: Slavery in Cuban Narrative (University of Texas Press, 1990), Dance Between Two Cultures: Latino Caribbean Literature Written in the United States (Vanderbilt University Press, 1997), Culture and Customs of Cuba (Greenwood Press, 2001), Lunes de Revolución: Literatura y cultura en los primeros años de la Revolución Cubana (Editorial Verbum, 2003), and Del silencio a la escritura: Autobiografía del esclavo Juan Francisco Manzano y otros escritos (2006). He is the editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. Born and raised in New York City, Luis is widely regarded as a leading authority on Latin American, Caribbean, Afro-Hispanic, and Latino U.S. literatures. ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS xi

Andrea O’Reilly Herrera is a Professor of Literature and Director of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. O’Reilly Herrera is a published poet and the author of critical essays on writers ranging from Charlotte Brontë and Marguerite Duras to Cristina García and Sandra Cisneros. She has also edited anthologies including Remembering Cuba: Legacy of a Diaspora (University of Texas Press, 2001), which features a wide range of testimonials drawn from the Cuban exile community and their children residing in the United States. She is also the author of the novel The Pearl of the Antilles (Bilingual/Review Press, 2001), which was awarded the Golden Quill Book Award in 2005 and later transcribed into a play. Among her more recent work is a forthcoming edited collection of essays Cuba: “Idea of a Nation” Displaced (SUNY Press, 2007); a forthcoming co-edited textbook for McGraw Hill titled The Matrix Reader: Examining the Dynamics of Oppression and Privilege; and a monograph contracted by the University of Texas Press and tenta- tively titled “Setting the Tent Against the House”: Cuban Artists in the Diaspora. Mary Pat Brady is the author of Extinct Lands, Temporal Geographies: Chicana Literature and the Urgency of Space (Duke UP, 2002). She teaches at Cornell University. Richard Perez is working towards his PhD in English and American literature at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He teaches U.S. Latino literature, Post-colonial literature and literary theory at Hunter College of the City University of New York. He is currently writing his dissertation on the specter in postcolonial, and trans-American literature. His work has appeared in Centro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies. He also writes book reviews for Tempo, the Latino portion of the New York Post. Kirsten Silva Gruesz teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-century liter- atures of the Americas, including Latino/a literature, at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her 2002 book, Ambassadors of Culture: The Transnational Origins of Latino Writing (Princeton University Press, 2002), examined early U.S. periodicals in Spanish in the con- text of literary relations between the Americas. She has most recently written essays on the Gulf of Mexico as a border zone, on Latinos in post-Katrina New Orleans, and on Latino appropriations of Whitman, and is currently completing a book titled Bad Lengua: A Cultural History of Spanish in the United States. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments

A project such as this one is dependent on the collaborative effort of its esteemed contributors. To them we issue our first thanks. These essays showcase the extraordinary range and ingenuity at work in con- temporary U.S. Latino/a literary studies. In many ways, the seeds for this book germinated close to a decade ago in conversations between the two of us about the apparent dearth of literary criticism in U.S. Latino/a Studies. Since then, our personal commitment to U.S. Latino/a literature has manifested itself in countless discussions sift- ing through the imaginative details of a literature we both love. This text is a testament to that persistent engagement. The CUNY Graduate Center has fomented the kind of intellectual intersections this text demonstrates. In general, we want to thank the English Department. We are both grateful to Meena Alexander for her wonderful friendship and profoundly insightful guidance into the nuanced relationship between U.S. Latino/a literature and postcolo- niality. Lyn in particular is indebted to Meena for an invitation to teach a graduate seminar in the spring of 2006 at The Graduate Center called “Latino Literary Textures,” in which many of the ideas that led to the introduction and structuring of this book were incubated. Richard also wants to acknowledge Peter Hitchcock for imbuing the most complex theoretical questions with a sense of social urgency and pleas- ure; Barbara Webb for keeping his attention on the Pan-Caribbean aspects that suffuse the fictional writers of this study; and Juan Flores for his untiring commitment to Afro-Latino culture and identity. Moreover, for long-searching conversations that helped deepen and refine his thinking on U.S. Latino identity, Richard wants to thank colleagues: Maha Malik, Jonathan Grey, Nick Powers, Devin Zuber, John Rodriguez, and Una Chung. Additionally, we would both like to thank the PSC-CUNY Research Foundation for a grant that got the book underway; the Center for Puerto Rican Studies; the Dominican Studies Institute; and the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean. It was Palgrave Macmillan’s belief in the idea of xiv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS this text that brought it to fruition. We are thankful for the patient efforts of our editors at Palgrave: Farideh Koohi-Kamali, Linda Wagner- Martin, and assistant editor Julia Cohen. Lyn also wants to express her appreciation to her recent students at the CUNY Graduate Center, and most particularly to the hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students she has taught over the years at The City College of the City University of New York, whose enthusi- asm and total involvement in the issues and polemics underlying U.S. Latino/a literary studies has always been nothing short of inspira- tional. Lyn’s views of the relationship between Caribbean literature and U.S. Latino/a literatures have been enriched by discussions with Silvio Torres-Saillant, Director of Latino and Latin American studies at Syracuse University—one of the foremost thinkers in the field. She is also grateful to José David Saldívar for his support and insight into the relationship between Mexican American/Chicano and East Coast Latino literary studies. Her notion of the “Latino Scapegoat” also owes much to her City College colleague, the late Edward Rivera, with whom she often discussed the incommensurability of Latino/a assimilation. Last, and certainly not least, Lyn thanks her husband Pitirre 51 for his amazing editing skills, his insights, and support, and deep, infinitely wise, love. Richard thanks his family for their support and patience: most importantly his loving wife Ana, and his children Jose, Kevin, and Laura; his beloved brothers Julio and Eric for their generous attention and comments; his uncle Pastor Edwin Cordero whose love of learning and language has served as an ongoing example in his life. Lastly, X, gracias for your invaluable help and friendship.