TENDER STRUGGLES: GEOGRAPHY, AFFECT, AND MODES OF POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY U.S. LATINA/O FICTION A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Oscar Omar Figueredo February 2016 © 2016 Oscar Omar Figueredo TENDER STRUGGLES: GEOGRAPHY, AFFECT, AND MODES OF POLITICS IN CONTEMPORARY U.S. LATINA/O FICTION Oscar Omar Figueredo, Ph. D. Cornell University 2016 This dissertation examines the role that feelings play in shaping forms of critique, politics and knowledge with a particular emphasis on geography. In articulating these ideas, I turn to the work of contemporary Latina/o writers whose writing provides critical insights and support for questions about how space, politics and knowledge intersect with emotions: Cristina García, Alex Espinoza, Ernesto Quiñonez, Helena María Viramontes, H.G. Carrillo and Manuel Muñoz. Through their attention to space as well as affect in everyday life, I argue that these writers engage in a tender mode of narrative relation that provides critical insight into the ways in which emotions operate in both the re-production and critical deconstruction of structures of relation. These caring narratives, I assert, model and enact a radical form of struggle with and for vulnerability: that is, an openness to being affected by others. I enhance these arguments about affect, relationality and modes of struggle throughout my dissertation by thinking about these ideas from my experiences with teaching, activism and interdisciplinary scholarship. In an attempt to engage in an openness and attentiveness like the tender struggles it theorizes, this dissertation moves through various discussions that are critical to both academic scholarship and social justice activism: from neoliberal transformations of ethnic urban spaces, to practices of food sovereignty in the ghetto, to the politics of care and gender in social movements, to the potential for cross-cultural coalition organizing through an avowal of vulnerability. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Oscar Omar Figueredo received his B.A. in Spanish and Comparative Literature with an individualized minor in Latin American Cultures and Societies from the University of Rochester in 2008. He took an M.A. in Hispanic Literature in 2012 and completed his Ph.D. in Hispanic Literature in 2016 at Cornell University. iii For my mother, Margarita C. Figueredo iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the tremendous amount of support I have received throughout the years from folks within and without academia. The list of individuals below is by no means comprehensive, nor does it indicate responsibility for any errors in the dissertation. I wish to thank the members of my dissertation committee, Debra Castillo, Mary Pat Brady, Gerard Aching and Clement Lai. I am especially thankful for Debbie’s enthusiastic support and for always believing in my potential as a scholar. With Mary Pat, I know I can always expect both intellectually engaging conversations and “real talk” about life outside academia. Gerard’s sincere comments and encouragement for this dissertation have helped me feel more confident in it. I am thankful for Clem’s encouragement, his lessons about the importance of community in social justice organizing and his overall friendship. Support from the Graduate School through a Provost’s Diversity Fellowship (2014) and various Conference Travel Grants (2009; 2010; 2012; 2013) was also key to bringing this dissertation to fruition. As was the generous support from the Sage Fellowship. The community created by the Latina/o Studies Program office at Cornell, including Marti Dense and Juliette Corazon, was critical to helping me feel comfortable and confident about being so close to my scholarly work. Part of the research for this dissertation was also supported in part by a generous Latino Studies Graduate Student Research Grant (2013) from LSP. v I am also particularly grateful to the faculty at Cornell beyond my committee members that have had a significant impact on my development as a scholar: Ella Diaz, Razack Karriem, Verónica Martínez-Matsuda, Satya Mohanty, Sofía Villenas, and Helena María Viramontes. Each has gave generously of their time to discuss my dissertation as well as general matters concerning surviving graduate school and life beyond it. I especially appreciated the opportunity to develop some of the ideas found in this dissertation in the writing group with Mary Pat Brady, Ella Diaz, Verónica Martínez-Matsuda, Melissa Rosario and Sofía Villenas, which was supported by a Brett DeBary Interdisciplinary Writing Group Grant (2012-2013) from the Society for the Humanities at Cornell. Mutual support from fellow graduate students during my time at Cornell has been essential to my survival throughout, as well as my development as a scholar. Thanks to Rodrigo Alatriste-Díaz, Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera, María Asencio, Cymone Bedford, Natasha Bissonauth, Charis Boke, Melissa Figueroa, Carrie Freshour, Elizabeth Fox, Armando García, Estella Gonzalez, Elena Guzman, Candace Katungi, Courtney Knapp, Orlando Lara, Dave Marzan, Laura Menchaca, Nancy Morales, Alicia Muñoz, Polly Nordstrand, Joanne Awuor Oport, Daniel Peña, Karla Peña, Ray Pineda, Monique Posadas, Nancy Quintanilla, Melissa Rosario, Sheryl-Ann Simpson, Kavita Singh, and Eddie Valero. I have appreciated, as well, the lessons from the many undergraduate students I have had the privilege of meeting and learning from: Anna-Lisa Castle, Lawrence Lan, Carmen Martínez, and Rebecca John. vi In the Ithaca community, special thanks to the friendship, encouragement and mentorship of Mary Anne Grady Flores, Paula Ioanide, Kristin Herbeck, and Kat Yang-Stevens. Beth Olivares and the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program at the University of Rochester; as well as Laurel Southard, Pam Davis, Terry Plater and the Cornell University Leadership Alliance Summer Research Program were instrumental in preparing me for graduate school. I am grateful for Virginia Raymond’s friendship, mentorship and legal counsel, along with Tom Kolker. Everyone who participated in the mass call-ins to the Brownsville City Jail and the Cameron County District Attorney’s office on behalf of Nancy and I deserve credit, too. I am thankful as well to those who contributed to various fundraisers on our behalf and to those who helped organize all of these forms of support, especially Mary Anne Grady Flores, Kristin Herbeck, Paula Ioanide, Candace Katungi, and Kat Yang-Stevens. The support and patience of my family in Brownsville has been critical since I first left, almost twelve years ago. Gracias a Herminia Gil, Margarita Figueredo, Olivia Urbina, Joaquín Figueredo, Martha Zoleta. I am thankful, as well, for the more recent help and encouragement of my new family in south central Los Angeles: Rufina Morales, Martín Morales, Marilu Morales, Milagros Morales. No one has endured a more intimate knowledge of the trials and tribulations of this process than Nancy Morales. Mi amor, this project owes so much to your presence here with me. Amalia Isidora has been here for much of it, too, and I hope she will one day benefit from it and appreciate it. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH……………........…….....................................iii DEDICATION…..………………………………….......................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………..........................v-ii PREFACE: ACTING WITH/IN FEAR.....................................................x CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION: MY OWN LOVE LETTER.................1 CHAPTER TWO: LOST IN THE BOTANICA………………………………...32 CHAPTER THREE: WHEN “KEEPING IT REAL” GOES WRONG: HELENA MARÍA VIRAMONTES’S “THE MOTHS” AND INTIMATE KNOWLEDGE...................................................................................66 CHAPTER FOUR: KNITTING OUR WAY TO THE REVOLUTION: THE CULTURAL POLITICS OF CREATIVE WORK AND H.G. CARRILLO’S LOOSING MY ESPANISH…………….....…………………………................95 CHAPTER FIVE: SHIMMERING THROUGH THE HELPLESSNESS: COUNTERSTORYTELLING, TENDERNESS AND TRANSFORMATION........................................................................130 CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION: EPISTEMIC VULNERABILITY, TENDERNESS AND REVITALIZATION DISCOURSE AT THE BORDER........................................................................................166 viii PREFACE: ACTING WITH/IN FEAR I. Before I begin this dissertation on the role of affect in the mediation of modes of relation in contemporary U.S. Latina/o literature, I want to offer a personal experience of tender struggles. In March 2013, my partner Nancy Morales and I were arrested for publicly challenging the authority of the U.S. Border Patrol in Brownsville, Texas.1 Confronted by Border Patrol officers asking us about our citizenship and immigration status as we prepared to board a domestic flight, we refused to answer or cooperate in their interrogation and insisted that we be allowed to continue on our journey unimpeded. Supported in part by a recent wave of similar citizen challenges at interior border checkpoints,2 we were convinced that this (in)action was well within our rights as citizens confronted by Border Patrol officers outside the context of an official port of entry. Though we knew that Border Patrol agents have the legal authority to briefly detain us in order to ask such questions (a violation of the 1 See democracynow. “EXCLUSIVE: U.S. Citizens Arrested at Airport for Refusing Border