Copyright by Manuel Gerardo Avilés-Santiago 2012 The Dissertation Committee for Manuel Gerardo Avilés-Santiago Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: DIGITIZING ETHNONATIONAL IDENTITIES: MULTIMEDIATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF PUERTO RICAN SOLDIERS Committee: Shanti Kumar, Supervisor Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez Jennifer Fuller Madhavi Mallapragada Yeidy M. Rivero DIGITIZING ETHNONATIONAL IDENTITIES: MULTIMEDIATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF PUERTO RICAN SOLDIERS by MANUEL GERARDO AVILÉS-SANTIAGO, B.A., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Dedication Dedicated to the young Puerto Rican soldier, who went to France, never came, back but left a song to be remembered; who sailed to Korea, never came back, but left behind a letter to be remembered; who flew to Vietnam, never came back, but left a photo album to be remembered; the young dreamer deployed to Iraq, never came back, but left behind a digital diary to be remembered. Acknowledgements Finding so many people to thank is one of the most gratifying reflection moments while wrtiting a dissertation. Not only because this marks the end of a long process, but also because of the memories that come to mind. Being able to remember and name every person who contributed to my project made me realize that I was not alone during this tough journey. It also made me feel privileged by having help, guidance, expertise, advice, validation, humor, empathy, understanding, laughter, or simply a silence indicating solidarity at the touch of a button--via email or cellphone. To all friends, colleagues, and relatives who joined me in different ways and from different platforms during the process, thank you. They were an army of ideas during an intense, yet fun intellectual battle. I would like to begin by thanking the faculty members of the Radio-TV-Film (RTF) Department at the University of Texas at Austin for trusting my intellectual potential and giving me the necessary tools for completing this project. I especially thank all faculty members for whom I worked as a Teaching Assistant: America Rodriguez, Lalitha Gopalan, Kathleen Tyner, and Charles Ramirez-Berg, for teaching me to respect and value the job of higher education. To the RTF staff, especially Charmarie Burke, Debbie Carney, Stephanie Crouch, Bert Herigstag, and Michael Monk, for lending a helping hand during the rigurous processes of graduate academic life. To my students, thanks for accepting the challenge and learn how to make visible the invisible. To the Ford Foundation, thank you for your intellectual and financial support during critical stages of my research. Being part of the Ford family has strengthened my project from very needed interdisciplinary perspectives. To my mentor, Maggie Rivas Rodriguez, for giving me the opportunity to join her campaing Defend the Honor, and for v being part of your staff in Voices: Latino and Latina Oral History Project. This experience allowed me to understand the importance of intervening in history, and channel the voices of those who were silenced by hegemonic war narratives. To my intellectual parents and lifetime adivsors at the Communications School at University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras Campus, Silvia Alvarez-Curbelo, and Eliseo Colón-Zayas. Thank you for intellectually knighting me on my way to doctoral studies. But above all, I will always be in debt with your long distance intellectual and emotional support. To Doctor Richard Cherwitz, thanks for inviting me to join as a mentor in one of the most powerful and influential initatives at UT, the Intellectual Entrepreneurship. To Arizona State University, especially to The School of Letters and Sciences, thanks for believing in my potential and giving me the opportunity of becoming an Assistant Professor at your institution. I have the honor of having a platoon of intelectuals on my dissertation committee; I am thankful for having them. To Jossiana Arroyo-Martínez, thank you for guiding me since my arrival at Austin. Our lunches tinged with conversation on Puerto Rican popular culture reified my vocation as a media scholar. To Madhavi Mallapragada, Ph.D., my confidence booster--her words of support in critical moments made me believe in my potential as a doctoral student without losing perspective on the importance of my development as an individual, who, besides being a scholar, is also a son, a brother, a partner, and a friend. To Jeniffer Fuller, thank you for making me feel as a part of academia. In particular, my most sincere thanks for recognizing my intellectual voice and channeling it at moments in which I would dare not talk. To Yeidy Rivero, Ph.D., thanks for accepting being one of my external readers. Thank you especially for producing so much necessary knowledge in Puerto Rico media studies, which became an inspiration for my scholarship. Finally, I would like to thank my advisor, Shanti Kumar, for taming vi my anxiety during episodes of uncertainty, and for helping trace an escape route in moments of logical chaos. Always available for conversation, Doctor Kumar not only gave direction to my dissertation, but also to my professional carreer. It has been an honor working with you. To my coallegues and research assistants in Puerto Rico, Fredy Oropeza and Luis Santiago, thank your for your help from afar. To the Audiovisual Media Archive at the School of Communications, University of Puerto Rico - Rio Piedras Campus, thank you for compiling such important material for Puerto Rican media history. To my outstanding editors, Alejandro Álvarez and Roger Gathman, thank you for revising, polishing, and commenting on my project. Every time you handed over your revisions and suggestions, you made me love my work even more. To my long time friends, David Acosta, Chris Calzada, Edwin Dominguez, Erick Galloza, Sacha Ferreira, Arthur Martínez, Kelvin Rodriguez, and Enrique Rojas, for cheering me up and being a good distraction in moments of distress. Special thanks to those brilliant minds who, at some point, served as external readers of my work (for free), my supportive and always available friends, Raquel Garza and Jesse Rodolfo. A special mention to my witty and intellectual cohort, Courtney Brannon Donnoghue, Matt Payne, and Curran Nault. I will always treasure our memories from the seminar rooms at RTF. To Kevin Sanson and Kristen Warner, thanks for helping me build the funniest memories of graduate school. I had the privilege of having what I call a friend-colleague--Danny Mendez and Melba Hoffer, thanks for always pointing at the small light at the end of the tunnel. To Doctor Leonor M. Díaz, my emotional coach, thanks for your words of wisdom. To Jorge D. Rodriguez, an angel who at the end of my stay in Austin gave me shelter and emotional support during one of the most challenging moments in my life. I vii will be eternally grateful. To my housemate, colleague and sister, Barbara I. Abadia- Rexach: thank you for engaging in this adventure with me, hand in hand, like the borther and sister we will always be. I would not like to close my acknowledgments without thanking my friend God, for daily reminding me of his existence through my wonderful and supportive family. To my parents, Jesús Avilés-Pérez and Doris Santiago-Villarubia, thank you for giving me light, for loving me and blessing me every single day. To my brothers, Alexy Avilés- Santiago and Jesús A. Avilés-Santiago, thank you for being my inspiration and emotional pillars from the moment I was born. You have been the best role models life has put in my way. To my sister Doris A. Avilés-Santiago, thanks for being the confidence of my soul and for bringing peace during so many emotional battles. Finally to those who during the last two decades have given me plenty of reasons to smile: my witty, fun, and lovely nephews. And finally, to all Puerto Rican men and women who have served, serve now, and will keep serving in the Unites States Armed Forces. Thank you for sharing your oral and/or digital stories, and for rewriting a history that had ignored you for more than a century. viii DIGITIZING ETHNONATIONAL IDENTITIES: MULTIMEDIATIC REPRESENTATIONS OF PUERTO RICAN SOLDIERS Manuel Gerardo Avilés-Santiago, PhD. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Shanti Kumar The silence and invisibility of Puerto Rican soldiers in fictional and non-fictional representations of U.S. Wars has motivated me to look for alternative spaces in which these unaccounted voices and images are currently being produced, stored, circulated, and memorialized. Within this framework, my dissertation explores the self- representation of Puerto Rican servicemen and women in social networking sites (SNS), (i.e. as MySpace and Facebook), in user-generated content (UGC) platforms, (i.e. YouTube), and also in web memorials. I am interested in understanding how Puerto Rican soldiers self-represent their ethnonational identity online within the overlapping of second-class citizenship. The theoretical framework proposed for this research will apply theories such as 1) articulation; 2) the notion of contact zone; and 3) colonial/racial subjectivities. To complete this goal, my research method draws on online ethnography, textual, and critical discourse analysis. Firstly, I will discuss the limited repertoire of images of Puerto Rican soldiers in TV and film. My argument is that, besides the massive omission of this history, the images and motifs that do escape de facto social censorship will be in conversation with the self-representations. The second chapter is the result of four years of the process of online ethnography on which I analyze the instances of self- representation of Puerto Rican soldiers in SNS.