University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2014 Compositions in Black and Brown: Manifestations of Afro-Latinity in U.S. Black Latino/a Literary Discourse Janelle Chevon Coleman University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the African American Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, Latin American Literature Commons, and the Other Spanish and Portuguese Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Coleman, Janelle Chevon, "Compositions in Black and Brown: Manifestations of Afro-Latinity in U.S. Black Latino/a Literary Discourse. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2683 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Janelle Chevon Coleman entitled "Compositions in Black and Brown: Manifestations of Afro-Latinity in U.S. Black Latino/a Literary Discourse." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Modern Foreign Languages. Dawn A. Duke, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Millie Gimmel, Luis Cano, Bertin Louis Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Compositions in Black and Brown: Manifestations of Afro-Latinity in U.S. Black Latino/a Literary Discourse A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Janelle Chevon Coleman May 2014 Copyright © 2014 Janelle Chevon Coleman All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To my Heavenly Father and my Lord Jesus Christ To my loving mother, Ms. Janet Houston To my late grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Claude L. and Olivet F. Houston iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for strengthening me throughout this journey. If there is anything I have learned in this process, I have come to realize that “His strength is made perfect in weakness.” I am eternally grateful not only for Your salvation, but also for Your grace to continue despite the many times I wanted to give up. Thank You, Lord, for all that You are! This accomplishment would not have been possible without You! Secondly, I would like to thank my family. Your prayers, your words of encouragement and your willingness to listen during my most frustrating moments have been invaluable to me. Thank you, Mom, Dad, my sisters Denise and Trynia, my brother Anthony, and my stepfather Aaron Pillow, for pushing me to press on when I wanted to quit. I love you guys! I would also like to thank my late maternal grandparents, Mr. Claude Houston and Mrs. Olivet Houston, for instilling in me a hunger and love for knowledge. Although you are not here to see me graduate, I know that you are smiling down from Heaven. Thanks for the sacrifices you made to get me where I am today. I am also grateful for the wonderful guidance I received from my dissertation committee. I would like to thank my director, Dr. Dawn Duke, for her wisdom and support during the writing process. Your willingness to invest time in my work and in my training as a scholar has challenged me to “pay it forward” to other minority students seeking the opportunities that I have had. You are an amazing mentor! I would also like to thank Dr. Luis Cano and Dr. Millie Gimmel for not only being superb mentors throughout my graduate career, but also great friends. I will always cherish our conversations, and will look forward to keeping in touch with you in the future. Dr. Bertin Louis, I am grateful to you for your expertise during this process. Although iv I have only known you for a short time, you have been an invaluable resource and a wonderful advisor. This dissertation also would not have been possible if it were not for the support of other professors at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. To Dr. Nuria Cruz-Cámara, Dr. Óscar Rivera Rodas, Dr. Bryant Creel, Dr. Michael Handelsman, Dr. Álvaro Ayo, Dr. Eurídice Silva and Dr. Greg Kaplan, thanks for always encouraging me to ask questions and to think “outside the box.” To Dr. Dolly Young, I am appreciative for the genuine care you have shown toward me throughout my graduate career. Your kindness and empathy towards students are characteristics I wish to emulate in my own teaching. To Dr. Patricia Davis-Wiley, thanks for your words of encouragement, expertise, and all the wonderful meals. In this last year, you have been a wonderful colleague and a fabulous friend. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Graduate School and the Southern Regional Education Board for their financial and emotional support throughout this process. The care and the knowledge I have received from both Dr. Carolyn Hodges and my SREB family have not only made the road to the doctorate a little less rocky, but they have reminded me of the importance of investing in others. Thank you for blessing me with this opportunity! Finally, I would like to thank all of my wonderful friends who have prayed with me, cried with me, laughed with me and celebrated with me. This achievement would not have been possible without you. To my “mosqueteros” Andy Ray and Dr. Lisa Parker, your sense of humor and positivity have constantly lifted me up in some of my darkest moments. Thanks for always having faith in me when I did not have faith in myself. To my writing buddy and dear friend Cedelle Niles, thanks for being the best motivational speaker ever! Looking forward to seeing you walk across that stage sometime soon! To my prayer team, Gary and Rhonda Peacock, v Pastors Steve and Jo McCullar, Carol Hanna, Sunshine Stokely, Dr. Lisa Parker, Dr. Sarah Fischer, Chuck and Laurie Lester, Melanie and Julian Reese, the students of Intervarsity Graduate Student Fellowship and my Cornerstone Church of God family, thank you for your countless prayers. I love each and every one of you. vi ABSTRACT Through an analysis of the literature by Afro-Latino writers Junot Díaz, Evelio Grillo, Piri Thomas and Loida Maritza Pérez, my dissertation shows how the multifaceted nature of Afro-Latino/a identity and culture is reflected in the works of three novels written by Spanish- speaking authors who self-identify as Afro-Caribbean Americans. I use criticism from such scholars as Juan Flores, Miriam Jiménez, and Jorge Gracia to show that U.S. Afro-Latinity is not representative of an essence, but rather of a set of common manifestations resulting from conflicting concepts of race and ethnicity. I assert that U.S. Black Latinos not only possess a unique history and culture that has its roots in both Latin American and African cultures, but also that they are currently constructing their own definition of selfhood that transcends the fixed racial labels that American society has created over time. In Chapter One, I discuss the historical realities that have created the concepts of race in both the United States and in Latin America. Chapter Two addresses Junot Díaz’s use of language play as a means to resist colonialist discourse about race in The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007). In Chapter Three, I look at how Evelio Grillo and Piri Thomas’ appropriations of blackness in their autobiographies Black Cuban, Black American (2000) and Down These Mean Streets (1967) demonstrate a tendency toward exclusion of those not belonging. This is evident in both authors’ overt rejection of White supremacy. Finally, in Chapter Four, I discuss the concept of home in Geographies of Home (2000) by Loida Maritza Pérez. Through an analysis of the main female characters of the novel, I assert that Afro-Latina women, by virtue of their racial heritages and the implications of their gender, often struggle to forge their own identity due to the tension between the societal expectations of their homelands in Latin America and the societal expectations of Black women in the United States. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: WRITING ON THE MARGINS: RECONCEPTUALIZING RACE IN U.S. AFRO- LATINO/A LITERARY DISCOURSE ....................................................................................................1 Problem ....................................................................................................................................1 Justification of Topic ................................................................................................................5 Historical Context of the Present Study ...................................................................................7 Theoretical Considerations .....................................................................................................22 Towards the Development of an Afro-Latino/a Literary Discourse .......................................26 Organization of the Dissertation .............................................................................................30 CHAPTER ONE — AFRO-LATINITY IN