DOCSLIB.ORG

Dancing in the Borderlands: Dance and Dance Metaphors in Esmeralda Santiago’S the Turkish Lover

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Dancing in the Borderlands: Dance and Dance Metaphors in Esmeralda Santiago’S the Turkish Lover DANCING IN THE BORDERLANDS: DANCE AND DANCE METAPHORS IN ESMERALDA SANTIAGO’S THE TURKISH LOVER Chandra L. Roughton A Thesis Submitted to the University of North Carolina Wilmington in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of English University of North Carolina Wilmington 2009 Approved by Advisory Committee _________________________Janet Ellerby _________________________Michael Wentworth _________________________Barbara Waxman Chair Accepted by _________________________ Dean, Graduate School TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iv DEDICATION ................................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 RELATIONSHIPS ...........................................................................................................................8 CLOTHING AND CONTROLLING THE BODY .......................................................................23 EDUCATION ...............................................................................................................................35 LANGUAGE AND VOICE ..........................................................................................................39 CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................46 WORKS CITED ............................................................................................................................50 ii ABSTRACT This thesis explores Esmeralda Santiago’s quest to locate her identity in her memoir, The Turkish Lover, and the role that classical Indian dance and Middle Eastern belly dance played in her journey. Using Gloria Anzaldua’s Borderlands/ LaFrontera: The New Mestiza I will examine Santiago’s borderland status as a mestiza, and I will demonstrate that she relies on her mestiza consciousness to liberate herself from her constricting relationships with her family and with Ulvi, her Turkish lover. Furthermore, I will examine the various roles which Santiago is called upon to perform for her family, community, and Ulvi and how those roles affect her sense of self. It is my contention that Santiago’s subjectivity is further complicated by her racial identity, her views on men and sexual relationships, and her desire for a higher education. The goal of my thesis is to show that while the borderlands can be restricting Santiago finds liberation within its boundaries. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude goes to my son, Lucas Powers, for his tolerance and understanding as he stepped over piles of books, folders, and papers scattered throughout the house, and for giving me much needed encouragement when my motivation was low. I would like to thank my thesis committee, Barbara Waxman, Janet Ellerby, and Michael Wentworth for their assistance and dedication in this project. I would like to especially acknowledge the chair of my committee, Dr. Barbara Waxman for her patience and kindness, for challenging me throughout my thesis-writing project, and for being my mentor as an undergraduate travelling to Puerto Rico to study Esmeralda Santiago and Julia DeBurgos. A very special thank you to Jeffrey Wayne Miller for his unconditional support as I finished up my thesis. Your understanding and encouragement carried me through the most difficult part of this process. I would like to thank Mr. Charles F. Green for his generous financial support of the Michael D. Wentworth Student Travel Fellowship. The opportunity that Mr. Green's vision provided me was not one that I could have provided for myself, and it changed my life. Your kindness, goodwill, and generosity is much appreciated. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Keith Newlin for encouraging me to apply for the Michael D. Wentworth Student Travel Fellowship as an undergraduate. A special thank you to Kianoosh Hashemzadeh for never tiring of listening to me talk about my research, and for being my dance partner; to Dr. Andrea Deagon for teaching me Middle Eastern belly dance; and to Dr. Adrian Sherman for his continual encouragement in completing my degree and in continuing my education. iv DEDICATION For my son, Lucas, who always believed in me, who makes me laugh when I want to cry, and who means the world to me. v INTRODUCTION Esmeralda Santiago, in her memoir The Turkish Lover, recounts her long-term relationship with Turkish filmmaker Ulvi Dogan. To date, there is virtually no published scholarship regarding The Turkish Lover; however, what Marta Vizcaya Echano says about Santiago’s narrative in When I was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman is applicable to The Turkish Lover as well: “Santiago’s identity is (re)presented throughout her memoirs and in subsequent interviews as a shifting set of heterogeneous—and sometimes contradictory— elements, some of which become more or less prominent depending on geographical, social, and cultural contexts as well as on the different stages of the author’s life” (113). The various identities that Santiago draws upon to (re)present herself stem from the multiple roles which she is called upon to perform. What is unique about Santiago’s The Turkish Lover is that in her relationship with Ulvi she is no longer simply contending with the cultural differences between being Puerto Rican and being American as she was in her first two memoirs When I was Puerto Rican and Almost a Woman; she is now under the influence of a man who views the world through the eyes of a Eurocentric Turk. The gender expectations imposed on her by Ulvi are similar to her family’s expectations; they want her to be a nena puerrtoriqueña decente1, he wants her to be a “good girl.” Furthermore, her geographical experience has broadened considerably in her moves to Fort Lauderdale, Lubbock, Texas, Syracuse, and Cambridge. Her subjectivity is no longer confined to her experiences in New York City. Gloria Anzaldúa, in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, describes a metaphor for consciousness that encourages women like Santiago to embrace their multiple heritages and influences. A borderland is a place where one culture overlaps another, where languages are 1 In the spirit of the authors I am writing about, Esmeralda Santiago and Gloria Anzaldúa, who celebrate the rich and creative space of dwelling in two languages, the Spanish in this thesis will not be translated. intertwined, and where cultural and social expectations collide, it “is a vague and undetermined place created by the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary. It is in a constant state of transition” (25). In particular, Anzaldúa is referring to the borderland that exists for Mexican- Americans in the American Southwest and the emotional struggle associated with residing in an in-between geographical location; however, her concept can be interpreted to include the space in which any two divergent cultures meet. Anzaldúa says that “la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. Being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual, or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed: which collectivity does the daughter of a darkskinned mother listen to?” (100). As a mestiza, Santiago is attempting to put her multiple subjectivities into perspective and to locate her place within her family, her culture, and the communities in which she lives. Her sense of place is complicated, not just because she is a mestiza, but also because of Ulvi’s control over her physicality. The couple meet in New York, then move to Florida for a few months. Ulvi returns her to her family in New York while he travels to Europe for a year; when he gets back he convinces her to move to Lubbock, Texas, and then to Syracuse so that he can go to school. She finally ventures out on her own and moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts to attend Harvard. When Santiago meets Ulvi Dogan she is already in the borderlands as a native Puerto Rican living in New York City. For eight years she has danced in between two cultures: that of Puerto Rico and America. She comes to terms with her borderland status by exploring it through her relationships with family, lovers, education, and most importantly, dance. Santiago’s (re)construction of herself in her third memoir has a unique perspective; it is further enriched by the influences of her Turkish boyfriend because he, too, is living in his own borderlands. 2 Santiago’s narrator has Omar, Ulvi’s friend in Lubbock, explain Ulvi’s complicated sense of place: “No matter how long he lives elsewhere, he will always be a Turk. It is more complicated for them. They think they are Europeans, but most of their country is across the Bosporus, in Asia. It is like being schizophrenic” (230). Ulvi is a European Turkish man, residing in New York City, who speaks Turkish, and is involved with a Puerto Rican woman. And when the edges of Ulvi’s world collide with Santiago’s, the two begin a long slow tango of multiple identities in motion. When Santiago enters into her relationship with Ulvi, she begins to perform a metaphorical
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Red Front Door, a Memoir
    Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU All Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate Studies 8-2019 The Red Front Door, A Memoir Camila B. Sanabria Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Sanabria, Camila B., "The Red Front Door, A Memoir" (2019). All Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 7529. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/etd/7529 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate Studies at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE RED FRONT DOOR, A MEMOIR by Camila B. Sanabria A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English Approved: ______________________ ____________________ Jennifer Sinor, Ph.D Christopher Gonzalez, Ph.D Major Professor Committee Member ______________________ ____________________ Michael Sowder, Ph.D Richard S. Inouye, Ph.D. Committee Member Vice Provost for Graduate Studies UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY Logan, Utah 2019 ii Copyright © Camila Sanabria 2019 All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT The Red Front Door, A Memoir by Camila B. Sanabria, Master of Arts Utah State University, 2019 Major Professor: Dr. Jennifer Sinor Department: English This is a creative thesis that contains two components. The first component is a critical introduction arguing for representation of mixed-status families and deportation narratives. The introduction makes this argument by reviewing U.S. immigration policy and engaging with narrative theory. The theory it engages with is Viet Thanh Nguyen’s concept of a narrative economy.
    [Show full text]
  • The Code-Switching and Confluence of Languages in Esmeralda Santiago’S When I Was Puerto Rican (1993)
    FAURJ The Code-Switching and Confluence of Languages in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I was Puerto Rican (1993) Sarah Stamos and Carmen Cañete-Quesada Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College Abstract: “The Code-Switching and Confluence of Languages in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I was Puerto Rican (1993)” is an essay/article written to produce and analyze thought on the style of code-switching of Spanish-English bilinguals. Santiago’s memoir details her young life in Puerto Rico in a rural home and society and then how she had to transition when she and her family moved to New York. Code-switching is when, in reference to Spanish and English, a person who speaks English will substitute an English word or phrase for a Spanish word or phrase. This occurs primarily with bilinguals. In When I was Puerto Rican, Santiago includes some Spanish words in her English context (because her primary language is English), practicing code-switching. This essay demonstrates the fundamentals of code-switching, how it is detailed in When I was Puerto Rican, and how events in history aided to its modern formation. “Code-switching” and the confluence of lan- The investigators discuss code-switching by ref- guages has been a linguistic manifestation of the erencing Spanish-English bilinguals and Chi- encounters between people of different cultures. nese-English bilinguals. In addition, they give Specifically concerning Spanish and English be- an example of the mechanics associated with tween the Caribbean and the United States, the code-switching by considering a specific sen- convergence of these two languages has greatly tence and studying how multilingual individuals heightened with the ever-continuing influx of incorporate more than one language: immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Jíbaros and Diaspora in Esmeralda Santiago's
    Label Me Latina/o Summer 2014 Volume IV 1 Multiple Hybridities: Jíbaros and Diaspora in Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican By Lorna L. Pérez Esmeralda Santiago's first memoir When I Was Puerto Rican, published in 1994, chronicles the childhood and relocation of Santiago and her family from Puerto Rico to New York City. The memoir—the vast majority of which takes place in Puerto Rico— charts the ways that Santiago becomes a hybrid, an identity that she represents as being created in the belly of the plane that takes her family from Puerto Rico to the United States. While the trauma of relocation that Santiago articulates is profound, the hybridity that permeates this memoir is more reflective of the changes that marked mid-twentieth century life in Puerto Rico than it is of the trauma of relocation. Though the relocation in the memoir is certainly a traumatic experience, it is not the site of hybridity in the text, but is rather its culmination. Santiago symbolically represents multiple modes of hybridity in the memoir, including the hybridity implied by the title of the text, which speaks to the ways that Puerto Rican life is being drastically reconfigured in the years from 1950-1970. Reading the text in light of the multiple hybrid modes that Santiago employs points to an anxiety that lies in the heart of the current debates about Puerto Rican identity: what does it mean to be Puerto Rican and how do we represent a hybridity that is created through the borderland state that is the Commonwealth? The ambiguity that marked and continues to mark the Commonwealth status of Puerto Rico creates within Santiago’s text a painful ambivalence, wherein the articulation of this identity manifests a borderlands subjectivity that is born from the legal ambiguity of the Commonwealth.
    [Show full text]
  • Cultural Hybridity and Its Complexity in Esmeralda
    Ikwan Setiawan, Linda Purwati dan Imam Basuki CULTURAL HYBRIDITY AND ITS COMPLEXITY IN ESMERALDA SANTIAGO'S ALMOST A WOMAN Hibriditas Kultural dan Kompleksitasnya dalam Novel Almost A Woman Karya Esmeralda Santiago Ikwan Setiawan1, Linda Purwati2 dan Imam Basuki3 1,2,3Universitas Jember [email protected] Naskah diterima: 29 Mei 2020 ; direvisi: 19 November 2020 ; disetujui: 7 Desember 2020 doi: https://doi.org/10.26499/jentera.v9i2.2495 Abstrak Tulisan ini mendiskusikan hibriditas dalam novel Almost A Woman karya Esmeralda Santiago. Novel ini menceritakan permasalahan kultural yang dialami Negi, tokoh utama, sebagai imigran Puerto Rico di New York, di mana ia harus mengapropriasi budaya Amerika agar bisa diterima oleh masyarakat induk. Untuk membahas permasalahan tersebut, kami akan menggunakan teori poskolonial Bhabha. Analisis tekstual digunakan untuk menjelaskan data terpilih dengan cara pandang poskolonial tanpa mengabaikan keterkaitan kontekstualnya dengan dinamika imigrasi dan diaspora. Hasil kajian ini menunjukkan bahwa tokoh utama harus menjalankan hibriditas sebagai strategi kultural untuk mendukung impian modernnya. Meskipun menikmati budaya Amerika secara apropriatif, ia masih berusaha untuk tidak melupakan budaya Puerto Rico. Dengan strategi ini subjek diasporik bisa menegosiasikan kepentingannya di tengah-tengah masyarakat induk dan kuasa budaya dominan, tanpa mengabaikan sepenuhnya budaya Puerto Rico. Kata-kata Kunci: hibriditas, ketidakberumahan, mimikri, poskolonial, imigran Puerto Rico Abstract This paper discusses hybridity in Esmeralda Santiago's Almost A Woman. This novel tells about cultural problems experienced by Negi, the main character, as a Puerto Rican immigrant in New York, where she must appropriate American cultures in order to be accepted by the host community. To discuss this problem, we will apply Bhabha's postcolonial theory.
    [Show full text]
  • Redalyc.Esmeralda Santiago in the Marketplace of Identity Politics
    Centro Journal ISSN: 1538-6279 [email protected] The City University of New York Estados Unidos Acosta Cruz, María Esmeralda Santiago in the marketplace of identity politics Centro Journal, vol. XVIII, núm. 1, spring, 2006, pp. 170-187 The City University of New York New York, Estados Unidos Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=37718110 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative AcostaCruz(v2).qxd 7/15/06 3:21 PM Page 170 CENTRO Journal Volume7 xv1ii Number 1 spring 2006 Esmeralda Santiago in the marketplace of identity politics MA R Í A AC O S TA CRU Z A B S T R A C T Esmeralda Santiag o ’s América’s Dream, with its ahistorical subjectivism and idealization of an agrarian past, offers a “Latino” docile Puerto Rican as the nov e l ’s central protagonist. This article explores the following: the m a r ketability of Latinos, Puerto Rican lite r a r y histo r y, and identity formation. Santiag o ’s nostalgia positions her ideologically within 1 9 3 0 s–1950s Puerto Rican writing. Santiag o ’s “te r ruño” presents a narrative model (exclusively working class characters, binary gender roles, an agrarian setting, a disconnection from co n te m p o r a ry culture) that reinvents the ste r e o t ype of the docile Puerto Rican.
    [Show full text]
  • A Translational Turn: Does Latinx Literature in Spanish Translation Expand Martí’S “Nuestra América” Marta E
    A Translational Turn: Does Latinx Literature in Spanish Translation Expand Martí’s “Nuestra América” Marta E. Sánchez UCSD and ASU Professor Emerita Presentation for delivery at the ATA 60th Annual Conference, Palm Springs, USA, Oct 23-26, 2019 2 Abstract: A Translational Turn: Does Latinx Literature in Spanish Translation Expand Martí’s Nuestra América? José Martí in “Nuestra América” imagined two different Américas: Spanish-language América (including Mexico) to the South (“nuestra América”) and the U.S. English-language expansive empire to the North that did not speak, as he said, “nuestro idioma.” Today, Spanish in the United States is considerably more pervasive than when Martí, writing and translating from within New York City (1881–1895), articulated his hemispheric linguistic division of two Américas. It is arguably now the second national language of the United States. In this presentation, I discuss the unprecedented phenomena (1990s and aughts) of counter-national English to Spanish translations of Latinx fictional narratives by U.S. mainstream presses. This turn in translation signals meaningful change in the historical importance of Spanish in the United States. I explain the translational turn of Latinx narratives to Spanish of intra-national translation within the same nation-state, as opposed to translation from one national border to a different national border, and I highlight brief textual examples of the twists and turns in the translations themselves, especially the erasure of their multilingual effects. I explain how my readings bring to the surface what the acts of translation attempt to bury in the texts, namely the multilingual effects. The demographic increase in the Spanish-language origin population due to in-migration and the high birth rate in the native population is a foundational reason for this translational turn, which helps to make Martí’s “other América” part of the Spanish-speaking Américas.
    [Show full text]
  • Esmeralda Santiago in the Marketplace of Identity Politics
    AcostaCruz(v2).qxd 7/15/06 3:21 PM Page 170 CENTRO Journal Volume7 xv1ii Number 1 spring 2006 Esmeralda Santiago in the marketplace of identity politics MA R Í A AC O S TA CRU Z A B S T R A C T Esmeralda Santiag o ’s América’s Dream, with its ahistorical subjectivism and idealization of an agrarian past, offers a “Latino” docile Puerto Rican as the nov e l ’s central protagonist. This article explores the following: the m a r ketability of Latinos, Puerto Rican lite r a r y histo r y, and identity formation. Santiag o ’s nostalgia positions her ideologically within 1 9 3 0 s–1950s Puerto Rican writing. Santiag o ’s “te r ruño” presents a narrative model (exclusively working class characters, binary gender roles, an agrarian setting, a disconnection from co n te m p o r a ry culture) that reinvents the ste r e o t ype of the docile Puerto Rican. América’s Dream offers no interplay of hybridity—one of the defining characteristics of Latino, and Puerto Rican identities. [Key words: Latino identities, d o c i l i t y, authenticity, market politics, ste r e o t yp e s ] [ 171 ] AcostaCruz(v2).qxd 7/15/06 3:21 PM Page 172 “Desde el fabuloso “retorno a la tierra’ de La workers and their interaction with people in other spheres of life; for example c a r re t a, […] la añoranza e idealización de la (teacher’s assistant) Tere Avila’s partnership with (over-educated and ambitious accountant) Irma Granados in Loving Pedro Infante.
    [Show full text]
  • Roberto Santiago
    BORICUAS INFLUENTIAL PUERTO RICAN WRITINGS AN ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY ROBERTO SANTIAGO SUB GOttlngen 206112 947 97A297I ONE WO RLD BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK CONTENTS Introduction xili Acknowledgments xxxiv PROLOGUE: CATHARSIS "... that reality.. ./teaches me to see, and will/bring me back to me." —FROM HERE BY SANDRA MARIA ESTEVES Sandra Maria Esteves Here 3 PARTI: PRIDE "Do as the bull in the face of adversity: charge...." —FROM TO THE PERSECUTED BY JOSfi DE DIEGO Jose de Diego To the Persecuted 7 Martita Morales The Sounds of Sixth Street 8 Jose Torres A Letter to a Child Like Me 11 vu v'tii • Contents PART 2: HISTORY AND POLITICS "Ipray to the rain .. ./Return the remnants of my identity/Bathe me in self-discovered knowledge...." —FROM IT IS RAINING TODAY BY SANDRA MARIA ESTEVES Sandra Maria Esteves It Is Raining Today , 19 Jesus Colon How to Know the Puerto Ricans 20 Esmeralda Santiago \ Island of Lost Causes 22 Jose de Diego Hallelujahs 25 Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican Nationalism 27 Luis Munoz Marin On Recent Disturbances in Puerto Rico 29 Abraham Rodriguez, Jr. The Boy Without a Flag 30 Julia de Burgos Mighty River of Loiza 46 Jose Luis Gonzalez The "Lamento Borincano" 48 Pablo Guzman The Party (FROM PALANTE! YOUNG LORDS PARTY) 52 Ronald Fernandez Los Macheteros 60 Rosario Morales Double Allegiance 74 CONTENTS • ix PART 3: IDENTITY AND SELF-ESTEEM "I am new. History made me.. ./I was born at the crossroads/and I am whole." —FROM CHILD OF THE AMERICAS BY AURORA LEVINS MORALES Aurora Levins Morales Child of the Americas 79 Julia de Burgos Ay Ay Ay for the Kinky Black Woman 80 Clara E.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus College of Humanities Department of English Undergraduate Program
    University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus College of Humanities Department of English Undergraduate Program English 3285 The Puerto Rican Experience: Puerto Rican Writers in the US Credit Hours: 45 hours / 3 Credits Prerequisites: Level 4-5 English proficiency. The course is designed to fulfill part of the requirement for English and non-English majors. Course Description A study of contemporary literature by Puerto Rican writers in English from the United States with special emphasis on the development of themes, techniques, and language. Objectives By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1. critically read and scrutinize the writings of diasporic Puerto Rican authors living in the United States who maintain cultural and familial ties to the island 2. analyze contemporary literary trends used by the writers (mixing of genres, code- switching, temporal/spatial fragmentation, free indirect discourse, among others) 3. examine and interrelate the influences and effects of migration, bilingualism, and biculturalism on the authors’ works 4. appreciate the aesthetics and the rich array of literary voices and concerns of a cultural community with deep roots in a literary tradition often ignored under hegemonic studies of American literature 5. deliver structured and critically informed oral presentations based on the authors’ works 6. write coherent, analytical/theoretical responses to quizzes, essay questions and/or research papers based on relevant course topics. Course Outline Weeks 1-2 6 hrs. Introduction and contextual readings; translation exercise and/or readings on Spanglish; historical, cultural, and statistical background of the Puerto Rican diaspora Weeks 3-4 6 hrs. Examination of Puerto Rican migration to the US; voices and images of the diaspora; literary history of Puerto Rican writers in the US Weeks 5-8 12 hrs.
    [Show full text]
  • PDF Download Almost a Woman a Memoir 1St Edition Ebook Free
    ALMOST A WOMAN A MEMOIR 1ST EDITION PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Esmeralda Santiago | 9780306820823 | | | | | Almost a Woman A Memoir 1st edition PDF Book When she went to the Performing Arts school, she had a career, a dancer. Aug 13, Doreen rated it liked it Recommends it for: to women, teens through old gals! Published on. Namespaces Article Talk. As she grows older her curiosity comes along about love. Views Read Edit View history. Miss Narayan Ana Maria Lagasca Plot Keywords. One of "The Best Memoirs of a Generation" Oprah's Book Club : a young woman's journey from the mango groves and barrios of Puerto Rico to Brooklyn, and eventually on to Harvard In a childhood full of tropical beauty and domestic strife, poverty and tenderness, Esmeralda Santiago learned the proper way to eat a guava, the sound of tree frogs, the taste of morcilla, and the formula for ushering a dead baby's soul to heaven. Santiago does a wonderful job in retelling the story of herself as a young girl coming to age. Is on page Negi has a secret life while a sleep as like a dream, she would do whatever she wanted and think how she wanted. Conversations Of Goethe. I'm looking forward to discussing this book at ER next week - and also, to reading the next volume of Santiago's memoirs! Santiago often repeats that Puerto Ricans and other people who come to the United States were invisible before memoirs were written about them. Esmeralda finds ways around it Wow.. My favorite movies. I know i would dream the same if i wasn't American Negi wants to loose her puerto rican accent.
    [Show full text]
  • INGL3285 Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora
    INGL3285 Literature of the Puerto Rican Diaspora Professor: Maritza Stanchich, Ph.D. Time/Place: Tuesdays and Thursdays 11:30 am -12:50 p.m. via sent Google Meet link Office hours: 1:30-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, or by appointment Email: pertinent emails only please to <[email protected]> You can also copy me at my official UPR address if you wish <[email protected]> Course description: As the second largest group of the booming U.S. LatinX population in the United States, and now far outnumbering Puerto Ricans on the island, Puerto Ricans stateside have since the early twentieth century forged important social, political, cultural and artistic movements. The Nuyorican Poets are just one group that has created a large body of literature, from New York to Hawaii, from the 1900s to today. How this literature challenges colonial and national paradigms, both in the United States and in Puerto Rico, will be a central question. Among these paradigms are the links between language, race and nation. For example, our study urges us to rethink commonly held assumptions, such as about language (monolingualism, bilingualism and spanglish), national and cultural identity (such as jibarismo) and race (confronting differing concepts of race and racism), as well as about assimilation and belonging, and national literary canons. Literature will be analyzed with attention to its social-political-historical-cultural contexts, from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. Our study will emphasize literary genres such as memoir, short story, novel, essay, poetry and drama, and themes including, classism, racism, gender, sexuality, cultural hybridity, diaspora/exile, biculturalism.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus College of Humanities Department of English
    University of Puerto Rico Río Piedras Campus College of Humanities Department of English Course Title: US Latino/a Literature Code: English 4256 Credit Hours: 45 hours/ 3 credits Dr. Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega Office 211, Janer Building (also online through Google Meets and emails) Office Hours: MW 8:00-8:30 am; 11:30 am -1:00 pm; 2:30 – 4:00 pm or by appointment online E-mail: [email protected] Course Description A study of the literature produced by Latino/a writers in the United States and its contribution to a multifaceted American literary tradition. The term Latino/a is used as an indicator of cultural identity and as a larger rubric that unites authors from Puerto Rican, Mexican, Cuban, and Dominican descent born and/or raised in the United States. This course will be taught in online modality. Objectives By the end of the course, students will be able to: 1. situate selected texts written by Latinos/as born and/or raised in the United States (and writing predominantly but not exclusively in English) within a transnational and historical perspective; 2. scrutinize the politics of representation by exploring issues of race, class, gender, and hybridity; 3. comprehend how cultural difference is reconfigured in the texts from a Latino/a perspective; 4. examine the effects of immigration/migration, bilingualism, and biculturalism on the authors’ works and how these issues relate to the process of ethnic literary representation; 5. analyze the texts’ rhetorical and aesthetic qualities that include innovative literary techniques used by the writers (mixing of genres and languages in a single work, temporal/spatial fragmentation, free indirect discourse, etc.); 6.
    [Show full text]