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Copyright by Lorna Judith Torrado 2013 The Dissertation Committee for Lorna Judith Torrado Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Urban Dialogues: Rethinking Gender and Race in Contemporary Caribbean Literature and Music Committee: Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez, Supervisor Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel Gabriela Polit Jill Robbins César Salgado Urban Dialogues: Rethinking Gender and Race in Contemporary Caribbean Literature and Music by Lorna Judith Torrado, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Spanish & Portuguese 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, 2013 Dedication For my teachers, family, friends, professors, and my husband because even when I wasn’t sure, they always were. ¡Gracias! Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my dissertation supervisor, Jossianna Arroyo, for her continuous support throughout this intelectual and emotional journey. ¡Gracias! I am also indebted to Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel who has helped and guided me since my first graduate school experiences. ¡Gracias! To the rest of my committee that willingly embarked on this long-term commitment, thanks for your faith in me. Danny Méndez and Médar Serrata (los dominicanistas), I really appreciate your friendship, and professional encouragement through all of these years. ¡Gracias! My Poderosa family, you have given me the opportunity to bring together my passion for the arts, education, and service, and turn that into a life project. ¡GRACIAS! My long life friends from Puerto Rico, ¡Gracias! My “corillo Boricua” in Austin, ¡Gracias! Consuelo, ¡gracias por TODO! Lanie, I could have not completed this work without you. Thanks for your unconditional friendship, and all the long hours we spend together working, talking, laughing, editing, and having fun. Thanks for EVERYTHING, my good friend! I could have not done this dissertation without the unconditional support of my parents José A. Torrado and Judith Fernández, because it doesn’t matter what I do they have ALWAYS supported me a 100%. ¡Gracias! Lastly, I have to thank my husband Joel who has been with me throughout the entire graduate journey. You have always believed in me, you have always been there to support me, to wipe my tears (of joy or sadness), and to pick me up every time. -en la calle codo a codo somos mucho más que dos- v Urban Dialogues: Rethinking Gender and Race in Contemporary Caribbean Literature and Music Lorna Judith Torrado, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2013 Supervisor: Jossianna Arroyo-Martínez How are music, literature and migration connected? How are these transnational conversations affecting the way countries construct their national discourses today? This dissertation studies how gender and race are constructed and questioned in the ‘cross- genre’ dialogue among contemporary urban literature, performance, and reggaeton music produced in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and New York City from the1990s-2000s. This ongoing dialogue of marginalized music and literature, made possible by the accessibility of new media, results in a unique urban configuration in which gender and racial identities are negotiated, resulting in the reinforcement of a trans-Caribbean cultural circuit. Following a non-traditional structural approach this dissertation proposes a new analytical and reading model beginning with the Puerto Rican diaspora’s cultural production in New York City as a point of departure, and from there expands to the rest of the Spanish Caribbean. I specifically focus on the writings of poets Willie Perdomo (NYC), and Guillermo Rebollo Gil (PR), the videos and lyrics of the reggaeton artists Tego Calderón and Calle 13 (PR), and the music and literary work of Rita Indiana Hernández (DR) in order analyze the complex interplay between music and literary texts to convey gender and racial imaginaries. I conclude that these literary, cultural, and performative texts abolish “national” configurations and are being replaced by broader vi definitions of “us,” race, and gender to address the complexities of contemporary Caribbean transnational identitary circuits. vii Table of Contents Acknowledgements..................................................................................................v Introduction............................................................................................................10 Would the real caribeño please stand up? ....................................................12 Literature and music .....................................................................................13 Chapters ........................................................................................................17 Chapter One: The re-writing of the diaspora’s reality in Willie Perdomo ............20 The Incorporation of the Diaspora Experience.............................................28 Trapped Between Black and White: The Black Puerto Rican Body ............35 The Black Body as a Historical Witness.......................................................41 The Negotiation of Masculinity....................................................................48 Chapter Two: Guillermo Rebollo-Gil: questioning race and gender from a blanquito’s point of view .................................................................................................53 The Performance of Racial Dynamics ..........................................................62 Performing Gender Through Music..............................................................76 Chapter Three: Commercial Reggaeton Versus Songs of Resistance ...................87 From Underground to Reggaeton Latino......................................................87 Mainstream Reggaeton: Daddy Yankee and Ivy Queen...............................91 Songs of Resistance: Calle 13.....................................................................100 More Songs of Resistance: Tego Calderón.................................................114 Calderón’s aesthetic of recuperation...........................................................122 Chapter Four: Historical Revision in the work of Rita Indiana Hernández.........127 Patriarcal Deconstruction............................................................................142 From a Local to a Global Configuration of Race .......................................149 Alternate Urbanity: From the Trujillo City to the Musical City.................151 viii Conclusion ...........................................................................................................168 Bibliography ........................................................................................................177 Vita 193 ix Introduction The present study examines contemporary literary and musical discourses of the Spanish Caribbean and the Diaspora from the 1990s-2010. It focuses on how writers and artists from the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and New York City, due to migration, globalization, and media access, articulate movable identities that leave behind and deconstruct national boundaries and configurations to generate a pan-Caribbean and pan- Latino landscape. This conversation forges a discourse of solidarity that problematizes Eurocentric and patriarchal national imaginaries inherited from colonial and post-colonial relationships. I specifically analyze the writings of poets Willie Perdomo (NYC), and Guillermo Rebollo Gil (PR), the videos and lyrics of the reggaeton artists Tego Calderón and Calle 13 (PR), and the music and literary work of Rita Indiana Hernández (DR). The thread that brings all of these works together is their resistance to the systematic reproduction of whitening and patriarchal discourses that still today underlie and shape the national identity constructions in the Spanish Caribbean and the US Diaspora. Both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, like the rest of Latin America, base their national racial discourse on the mestizaje ideal as part of their foundational fiction. However, the everyday racial interactions, social power, and uneven economic distribution uncovers evidence of uneven societies that reinforce white privilege and exclude the black population from the national body. In the case of the Dominican Republic the extreme negation and rejection of blackness and the African heritage have extended to the repudiation of anything Haitian-related. These discourses become even more problematic for the diasporic subject when faced with the United States’ racial categorization according to the “one-drop rule,” a combination that creates additional 10 layers and forms of exclusion that force the newcomer to invent new ways to articulate an identity that responds to his or her circumstances. Similarly, both Caribbean nations have been constructed under patriarchal and heteronormative discourses systematically reinforced by religious and moral values supported by the state. These conventions articulate a strong and sometimes aggressive masculinity that needs constant reification through homophobia and misogynist social and ideological behaviors. Thus ‘liminal sexualities’ have been excluded from both ‘imagined nations’ as they are seen as a threat to the national unity and