University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Spanish and Portuguese ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 9-5-2013 Azúcar negra: (Re) Envisioning Race, Representation, and Resistance in the Afrofeminista Imaginary Kiley Jeanelle Guyton Acosta Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/span_etds Recommended Citation Guyton Acosta, Kiley Jeanelle. "Azúcar negra: (Re) Envisioning Race, Representation, and Resistance in the Afrofeminista Imaginary." (2013). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/span_etds/21 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spanish and Portuguese ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Kiley Jeanelle Guyton Acosta Candidate Spanish & Portuguese Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz, Chairperson Kimberle López Margo Milleret Nancy López i AZÚCAR NEGRA: (RE)ENVISIONING RACE, REPRESENTATION, AND RESISTANCE IN THE AFROFEMINISTA IMAGINARY BY KILEY JEANELLE GUYTON ACOSTA B.A., Spanish, Moravian College, 2003 M.A., Hispanic Literature, University of New Mexico, 2005 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Spanish and Portuguese The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico June, 2013 ii DEDICATION In the wise words of my father, “we stand on the backs of our ancestors. Those that came before us have struggled and persevered to clear the path for future generations.” I dedicate this dissertation to my grandmother Eleanor Jeanelle. Grandma was a strong, loving woman who relentlessly pursued the educational advancement of her children above all else. Being poor, black, and female, Grandma spent her life laboring in fields and factories and domestic service, never having the opportunity to realize her dreams of becoming a scholar. However, her hard work and resilient spirit allowed me to walk a different path. Grandma left this earth when I was only five years old, but I have felt her guiding presence strongly throughout my life. I am deeply grateful to Grandma, and all of my ancestors, for creating a foundation for me to stand on. Ashé! iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I enthusiastically acknowledge Dr. Eleuterio Santiago-Díaz, my advisor and dissertation chair, for the unyielding support he has provided me over the course of my graduate studies. His brilliance, creativity, professionalism, and compassion will continue to impact and inspire the trajectory of my life as well as my academic career. I also thank my committee members, Dr. Margo Milleret, Dr. Kimberle López, and Dr. Nancy López for their valuable insight pertaining to this study as well as their encouragement and assistance in my professional development. Gratitude is extended to the Ford Foundation, the Smithsonian Institution, the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, and the Black Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara for providing me with invaluable opportunities to advance my research. To my parents and siblings for their unconditional love and support. I am so blessed to be a member of our diverse, creative, and tight-knit family. Thank you Oscar and Ken for helping with Nikai over the years as I pursued my research and writing. To my friends for the inspiration and joy they bring, and to my local and international community for nourishing my spirit through music, dance, and calor humano. Finally, to my sweet son Nikai for being my greatest teacher in life. iv AZÚCAR NEGRA: (RE)ENVISIONING RACE, REPRESENTATION, AND RESISTANCE IN THE AFROFEMINISTA IMAGINARY by Kiley Jeanelle Guyton Acosta B.A., SPANISH M.A., HISPANIC LITERATURE PHD, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE ABSTRACT In this dissertation, I locate contemporary articulations of afrofeminismo in manifold modes of cultural production including literature, music, visual displays of the body, and digital media. As a point of departure, I examine the development of afrofeminismo in relation to colonial sexual violence in sugar-based economies to explain how colonial dynamics inflect ideologies of blanqueamiento/embranquecimento (racial whitening) and pseudo-scientific racial determinism. In this context, I address representations of the mujer negra (black woman) and the mulata (mulatto woman) in Caribbean and Brazilian cultural discourse. Specifically, I analyze how the discourses around, as well as by, these figures contribute(d) to the (trans)formation of national identities in former slave societies. I subsequently situate afrofeminista epistemology among interrelated transnational discourses of Afro-diasporic female subjectivity. v My study brings into focus three geographic areas of concentration. These areas include the Hispanic Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic), Brazil and the diasporic Caribbean communities of the United States. Within these geographic areas, I have identified three dynamic contemporary sites of afrofeminista expression that revise and (re)envision blackness and womanhood in the Latin American and U.S. Latino cultural imaginaries. I posit these arenas as cross-cultural contact zones where symbolic and material expressions of ethno-racial identity and resistance expand third-wave African-American black feminist theory. Yet, afrofeministas also reveal nuanced racialized, gendered subjectivities in response to highly-specific socio-economic and political conditions. My research thus explores the various social, cultural and political mechanisms inextricably linked to the articulation of race, gender, and identity within those Latin American nations who share strong ideological ties to the construct of racial democracy. Furthermore, extrapolating from the Latin American context, I address the porous and highly conflictive networks of racial and national identity emerging from the multiply-positioned subjects of Caribbean diasporic communities in the United States. I argue that afrofeminismo generated organically within Latin American and U.S. Latino revisionist artistic spaces problematizes the idea of mestizaje (racial miscegenation) as a unifying agent of nationalism. Through cultural media, afrofeministas (re)imagine transatlantic slavery as a shared historical memory connecting African women and their descendants through collective structural and psychological conditions. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INRODUCTION ................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 1 INSCRIPTIONS OF RACIAL (MIS)REPRESENTATION: THE BLACK FEMALE BODY IN HISPANIC CARIBBEAN AND BRAZILIAN LITERATURE .................................................................................................................17 CHAPTER 2 TRANSNATIONAL DIALOGUES: THEORIZING AFROFEMINISMO, FROM THE BLACK FEMINIST MOVEMENT TO THE BIRTH OF HIP-HOP ......................................................................................................68 CHAPTER 3 RAPPING RACE AND RESISTANCE: A BREAKDOWN OF THE CUBAN UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP MOVEMENT ...............................................111 CHAPTER 4 AFRO-CUBAN COUNTERPOINT: BLACKNESS AND BLANQUEAMIENTO IN THE HIP-HOP FEMINIST IMAGINARY ....................161 CHAPTER 5 BLACK LIKE US: NEGOTIATING RACE, REPRESENTATION, AND RESISTANCE IN THE DOMINICAN DIASPORA OF THE UNITED STATES ..........................................................................................................................219 vii CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................291 REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................297 viii INTRODUCTION 0.1 Statement of Purpose The term “afrofeminismo” represents a theorization of the black female experience by a diverse and transnational spectrum of Latina women of African descent. In “Azúcar negra: (Re)Envisioning Race, Representation, and Resistance in the Afrofeminista Imaginary,” I approach contemporary articulations of afrofeminismo in manifold modes of cultural production such as literature, music, visual displays of the body, and digital media as discourses that contest hegemonic constructions of race and gender. The representative texts I analyze from these modes include novels by Loida Maritza Pérez and Junot Díaz, Maricela Medina’s interview on Afro-Dominican identity in the U.S., feminist writing by Brazilian authors Miriam Alves and Conceição Evaristo, Cuban and Brazilian rap music. In addition, I look at Afro-centric style trends and body aesthetics tied to the articulation of black feminism in the Cuban hip-hop movement and consider the contemporary implications of the widespread dissemination of these expressions through internet file sharing and social media. The overarching objective of my research is twofold. First, I examine the historical legacy of colonial sexual violence in sugar-based economies and the enduring ideologies of blanqueamiento/embranquecimento (racial whitening) as hegemonic structures that inflected nineteenth- and twentieth-century Hispanic Caribbean and Brazilian cultural discourse on national, racial and gender identity. In this context, I analyze how representations of the mujer negra (black woman) and the mulata (mulatto 1 woman) have contributed