Twentieth Century Transnational African American Mexican Art and Literature
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City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2018 Nomads of the Body, Exiles of the Mind: Twentieth Century Transnational African American Mexican Art and Literature Anahi A. Douglas The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2697 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] NOMADS OF THE BODY, EXILES OF THE MIND: TWENTIETH CENTURY TRANSNATIONAL AFRICAN AMERICAN MEXICAN ART AND LITERATURE by Anahí Douglas A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 © 2018 Anahí Douglas All Rights Reserved ii Nomads of the Body, Exiles of the Mind: Twentieth Century Transnational African American Mexican Art and Literature by Anahí Douglas This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date Robert Reid-Pharr Chair of Examining Committee Date Eric Lott Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Robert Reid-Pharr Marc Dolan Duncan Faherty THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract Nomads of the Body, Exiles of the Mind: Twentieth Century Transnational African American Art and Literature by Anahí Douglas Advisor: Robert Reid-Pharr This dissertation examines the migration of African Americans from the U.S. to Mexico; however, these paths extend well beyond the North American continent and intersect with a much larger migration: the African Diaspora. The journeys of Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Willard Motley, and Elizabeth Catlett to Mexico illustrate an intricate web of rhizomatic connections spanning the Black Atlantic, the Caribbean Ocean, the Mississippi River and the Rio Grande. This dissertation examines the history of African American migration to Mexico during the twentieth century a well-documented, yet understudied area of research. These migrations offer an opportunity to reevaluate canon formation, Border studies discourse, and also serve as a platform to engage with twenty-first century conversations of globalism, border enforcement, and African American-Latinx solidarity. iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Robert Reid-Pharr, Marc Dolan, and Duncan Faherty, for their feedback and support of my project. Their generosity of spirit sustained me throughout the process of writing this dissertation. The students and faculty in the English Department at the Graduate Center have also contributed to my scholarship, and I am grateful for the encouragement I have received from everyone there. In particular, I owe a debt of gratitude to Eric Lott and the faculty and staff of the Institute for Research on the African Diaspora in the Americas and the Caribbean for provding me with the practical and financial support to complete my dissertation. I would be remiss not to thank my peers in the English program for their friendship and commitment to my success. My colleagues Nick Gamso, Velina Manolova, Susan Barile, James Arnett, Kristin Moriah, and Erin Nicholson Gale are formidable scholars and individuals I am proud to call my comadres and compadres. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for their support of the “Bridging National Borders” seminar which instilled greater confidence in my project and put me in dialogue with a cohort of interdisciplinary scholars. In particular, I am grateful to have crossed paths with the “Bridging National Borders” seminar leader, Benjamin Johnson at Loyola University. The guidance of several other colleagues outside of the Graduate Center has also nurtured my growth as a scholar. I cannot thank Karl Jacoby at Columbia University enough for his feedback and sharing his work with me. I am grateful for the encouragement I received from Junot Díaz at MIT throughout the writing process. I am truly thankful for the enduring support of Jeff Allred at Hunter College who has contributed more than a decade of support to my success. There are several friends and family members whose love and encouragement buoyed me v during the writing process. I am thankful for to the following friends who motivated me to complete my dissertation: Jennifer Suminski, Nicole Gleason, Andrea Tapia, Kate Corriveau, and Laurel Parker. My dissertation would have been impossible without the amor and bendiciones of my mamá, Lilia Douglas, my brother, Roberto Douglas, and my niece Hayli Torres. Only one word can express the depths of my love, respect, and appreciation to my partner, husband, and editor Brian Pross: Zafa. Lastly, I would like to thank Jerry Watts who set me on my path years ago. Although he was not there to witness the completion of my journey, I carried his simple but poignant advice to “get it done, sis” throughout the writing process. As scholar dedicated to production of scholarship that contributed to social justice and a professor who supported students along on their journeys, this dissertation is dedicated in memory of Jerry Gafio Watts. In closing, as I find myself living in a zeitgeist in which many are running headlong to a halcyon past that did not account for racial, ethnic, sexual, or gender minorities, because we did not count as Americans, is a prospect I will rally against with all of my might. America was never great, but I will say this, Langston Hughes, Audre Lorde, Willard Motley, and Elizabeth Catlett went to great distances to demonstrate that our city upon a hill was—and continues to be—in need of repair, and for that I am beyond thankful because it has allowed me to write this dissertation: Nomads of the Body, Exiles of the Mind: Twentieth Century Transnational African American Mexican Art and Literature. vi Contents Introduction 1 Chapter One: 18 “A Brown Man’s Country: The Transnational Poetics of Langston Hughes’s Mexico” Chapter Two: 65 “In the Light of Cuernavaca: Home, Language, and the Roots of Audre Lorde’s Transnational Feminism” Chapter Three: 109 “Saint Willard of the Dogs: The Forgotten Literary Expatriation of African American Social Realist Willard Motley” Chapter Four: 146 “Coloring Outside the Nation’s Borders: The Policing Elizabeth Catlett’s Visual and Corporeal Politics in Mexico” Conclusion: 194 Bibliography: 204 vii Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres. viii Introduction Poor Mexico: So far from God, so close to the United States. -Porfirio Díaz For nearly two centuries Mexico has been the subject of countless American films, songs, and novels and has been used as a vantage point to gage the United States’ social and political landscape. Mexico is a fixture of popular American culture, suggesting not just a demand for plots set in Mexico but a need for American plots to take place on the other side of United States’ southern border. For example, in Night of the Iguana (1964), filmed on location in Puerto Vallarta, John Huston directs Richard Burton’s performance of Lawrence Shannon, a disgraced reverend from Virginia who has moved to Mexico to escape his past and works for a shabby tour company, catering to United States tourists. Despite Shannon’s relocation, the injury to his reputation follows him to Mexico. The film’s climax occurs when the group Shannon is escorting indicate their knowledge of the scandal that drove him from his parish. With this, an allegation of sexual impropriety between Shannon and a young female guest surfaces. Burton’s performance captures all of the alcohol-soaked anguish and loneliness in the Tennessee Williams’ play, and like the titular iguana tied to the inn’s entrance, Shannon, although in Mexico, finds himself bound to a life he left behind. Realizing, despite being in Mexico, his past turned up like a bad penny, Shannon bellows, “You're ruining me in Mexico! Now, get out of here. It's indecent.”1 While Shannon has descended into alcoholism, works an unfulfilling job, and lives in subpar conditions, he is disgusted by the thought that it might all be taken away from him. What Shannon finds indecent is that the danger of regaining his past in the United States 1 Night of the Iguana, DVD, directed by John Huston, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer: Los Angeles, 1964. pales in comparison with the peril of losing the meagre life he has found in Mexico. Burton’s performance in Night of the Iguana fulfills a cultural notion that Mexico serves as a place entitled to the United States through empire where one can go to forget or be forgotten. This myth has been rearticulated so often that attention is no longer paid to the United States’ presence in Mexico; instead, movement north from the Mexican border is a point of national focus. Though the age of empire began centuries before the Monroe Doctrine, I agree with Shelly Streeby’s assessment that the locus of the United States’ political and popular scrutiny of its southern border dates back to 1848. However, the U.S.-Mexican War did more than settle the United States’ southern border. The conflict and annexation of Mexican territory completed the United States’ vision of western expansion, drawing the boundaries that defined national identity. In American Sensations, Streeby, following Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities, highlights the efforts of the nineteenth century press to brand the U.S.-Mexican War as a conflict waged by individual citizens.2 Seizing upon the image of white volunteer soldiers, the U.S.-Mexican War was rendered as a dispute not between two nations; rather, it was a war fought against non-white Mexicans and won by white Americans.