Synopses & Reviews
Beset by the forces of European colonialism, US imperialism, and neoliberalism, the people of the Antilles have had good reasons to band together politically and economically, yet not all Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans have heeded the calls for collective action. So what has determined whether Antillean solidarity movements fail or succeed? In this comprehensive new study, Alaandiacute; Reyes-Santos argues that the crucial factor has been the extent to which Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans imagine each other as kin.and#160;
Our Caribbean Kin considers three key moments in the regionandrsquo;s history: the nineteenth century, when the antillanismo movement sought to throw off the yoke of colonial occupation; the 1930s, at the height of the regionandrsquo;s struggles with US imperialism; and the past thirty years, as neoliberal economic and social policies have encroached upon the islands. At each moment, the book demonstrates, specific tropes of brotherhood, marriage, and lineage have been mobilized to construct political kinship among Antilleans, while racist and xenophobic discourses have made it difficult for them to imagine themselves as part of one big family.and#160;and#160;Recognizing the wide array of contexts in which Antilleans learn to affirm or deny kinship, Reyes-Santos draws from a vast archive of media, including everything from canonical novels to political tracts, historical newspapers to online forums, sociological texts to local jokes. Along the way, she uncovers the conflicts, secrets, and internal hierarchies that characterize kin relations among Antilleans, but she also discovers how they have used notions of kinship to create cohesion across differences.and#160;and#160;and#160;
Review
"A wonderful extended meditation on the ways Latina writers have imagined and narrated alternative notions of 'community' in which the United States and Latin America are interdependent extensions of each other rather than strictly bounded and mutually exclusive."
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"This timely and insightful book offers analyses of narratives both f author of On Latinidad
Review
"Socolovsky considers how Latina fiction disrupts mainstream notions about what constitutes the US nation and national identity. Her arguments are particularly useful in discussing current debates about immigration and anti-immigration rhetoric, which links the illegal presence of Latin Americans in the US to threats this foreign culture poses to what is truly 'American.' Highly recommended."
Review
andquot;Skillfully demonstrates how Jewish American women writers employ images of blackness to undermine the division between 'white' and 'black' identity. The figure of the 'White Negress' thus becomes the site for a feminist critique of whiteness.andquot;
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andquot;Placing gender squarely at the intersection of black-Jewish cultural imaginings, The White Negress makes a stunning contribution to our understanding of whiteness, race relations, and ethnic literature.andquot;
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andquot;By sustaining attention to women and fidelity to the complex and even contradictory texts,
The White Negress constitutes both a convincing critique of scholarship on minstrelsy and a fascinating literary study in its own right.andquot;
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andquot;an important contribution to figurations of race in the twentieth century.andquot;
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andquot;This is a fine book, filled with expertly hewn close readings of a small but important group of female actors and authors, women who made significant contributions to how African Americans and Jews of European descent imagined one another.andquot;
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andquot;
The White Negress acts as a significant challenge to existing scholarship concerning whiteness, cross-racial performances, and black-
Jewish encounters. Although, by her own admission, Harrison-Kahanandrsquo;s book is not 'a comprehensive survey of black-Jewish relations among women' or Jewish women and blackface performance, her study is perhaps most noteworthy for its assertion that future work in these fields must take women, gender, and sexuality seriously.andquot;
Review
andquot;The White Negress offers innovative approaches for understanding the shifting logics of citizenship and racial formation across the twentieth century through the work of culture.andquot;
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andquot;With breadth, depth, originality, and intellectual acumen, Reyes-Santos builds on her conceptualization of transcolonial and transnational kinship through a number of social and cultural examples to arrive at a more diversified approach in literary and cultural studies.andquot;
Review
andquot;Chang's excellent book makes a compelling case for why Asian American critics need to use the 'ghetto' as a paradigm and marshals ample evidence to show the ways Asian American literature supports such a provocative claim.andquot;
Review
andquot;Yoonmee Chang's elegantly written, deftly argued, and meticulously developed Writing the Ghetto makes a valuable contribution to our understanding and appreciation of Asian American social history and literature. This is an important book.andquot;
Review
andquot;Chang's argument is nuanced, provocatively counterintuitive, and occasionally dizzying.
Writing the Ghetto is an important text not only for Asian American scholars, but for American and ethnic studies scholars interested in interrogating the politics, economics, and ethics of belonging.andquot;
Review
andquot;Alaandiacute; Reyes-Santosand#39;s elegant work unites vernacular and elite voices to discuss nationalist thought in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. Her insights help us claim our intellectual traditions in contemporary struggles for justice.andquot;
Synopsis
This book examines the ways that recent U.S. Latina literature challenges popular definitions of nationhood and national identity. It explores the works of Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American writers Denise Chavez, Ana Castillo, Sandra Cisneros, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Esmeralda Santiago, and Himilce Novas to show how these texts argue for the legitimate belonging of Latino/as within U.S. borders and counter much of today’s anti-immigration rhetoric.
Synopsis
This book examines the ways in which recent U.S. Latina literature challenges popular definitions of nationhood and national identity. It explores a group of feminist texts that are representative of the U.S. Latina literary boom of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, when an emerging group of writers gained prominence in mainstream and academic circles. Through close readings of select contemporary Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American works, Maya Socolovsky argues that these narratives are “remapping” the United States so that it is fully integrated within a larger, hemispheric Americas.
Looking at such concerns as nation, place, trauma, and storytelling, writers Denise Chavez, Sandra Cisneros, Esmeralda Santiago, Ana Castillo, Himilce Novas, and Judith Ortiz Cofer challenge popular views of Latino cultural “unbelonging” and make strong cases for the legitimate presence of Latinas/os within the United States. In this way, they also counter much of today’s anti-immigration rhetoric.
Imagining the U.S. as part of a broader "Americas," these writings trouble imperialist notions of nationhood, in which political borders and a long history of intervention and colonization beyond those borders have come to shape and determine the dominant culture's writing and the defining of all Latinos as "other" to the nation.
Synopsis
During the first half of the twentieth century, American Jews demonstrated a commitment to racial justice as well as an attraction to African American culture. Until now, the debate about whether such black-Jewish encounters thwarted or enabled Jewsandrsquo; claims to white privilege has focused on men and representations of masculinity while ignoring questions of women and femininity. The White Negress investigates literary and cultural texts by Jewish and African American women, opening new avenues of inquiry that yield more complex stories about Jewishness, African American identity, and the meanings of whiteness.
Lori Harrison-Kahan examines writings by Edna Ferber, Fannie Hurst, and Zora Neale Hurston, as well as the blackface performances of vaudevillian Sophie Tucker and controversies over the musical and film adaptations of Show Boat and Imitation of Life. Moving between literature and popular culture, she illuminates how the dynamics of interethnic exchange have at once produced and undermined the binary of black and white.
Synopsis
Our Caribbean Kin explores the extent to which Dominicans, Haitians, and Puerto Ricans have imagined one another as part of the same big family, rallying against the forces of European colonialism, US imperialism, and neoliberalism. Drawing from a vast archive of texts, ranging from nineteenth-century political tracts to twenty-first-century online forums, Alaandiacute; Reyes-Santos considers both the benefits and the limits of these kinship tropes, uncovering the conflicts and internal hierarchies among Antilleans, while also discovering how they have created cohesion across differences. and#160;and#160;
Synopsis
In the United States, perhaps no minority group is considered as andldquo;modelandrdquo; or successful as the Asian American community, which is often described as residing in positive-sounding andquot;ethnic enclaves.andquot; Yoonmee Chang's Writing the Ghetto helps clarify the hidden or unspoken class inequalities faced by Asian Americans, while insightfully analyzing the effect such notions have had on their literary voices.
Synopsis
In the United States, perhaps no minority group is considered as "model" or successful as the Asian American community. Rather than living in ominous "ghettoes," Asian Americans are described as residing in positive-sounding "ethnic enclaves."
Writing the Ghetto helps clarify the hidden or unspoken class inequalities faced by Asian Americans, while insightfully analyzing the effect such notions have had on their literary voices.
Yoonmee Chang examines the class structure of Chinatowns, Koreatowns, Little Tokyos, and Little Indias, arguing that ghettoization in these spaces is disguised. She maintains that Asian American literature both contributes to and challenges this masking through its marginalization by what she calls the "ethnographic imperative." Chang discusses texts from the late nineteenth century to the present, including those of Sui Sin Far, Winnifred Eaton, Monica Sone, Fae Myenne Ng, Chang-rae Lee, S. Mitra Kalita, and Nam Le. These texts are situated in the contexts of the Chinese Exclusion Era, Japanese American internment during World War II, the globalization of Chinatown in the late twentieth century, the Vietnam War, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the contemporary emergence of the "ethnoburb."
About the Author
ALAandIacute; REYES-SANTOS is an assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of Oregon. She is the former codirector of the journal Revista Estudios Sociales, published by Centro Bonandoacute; in the Dominican Republic.and#160;and#160;
Table of Contents
1 Introduction: The Asian American Ghetto 1
2 andldquo;Like a Slumandrdquo;: Ghettos and Ethnic Enclaves, Ghetto and Genre 25
3 The Japanese American Internment: Master Narratives and Class Critique 70
4 Chinese Suicide: Political Desire and Queer Exogamy 111
5 Ethnic Entrepreneurs: Korean American Spies, Shopkeepers, and the 1992 Los Angeles Riots 135
6 Indian Edison: The Ethnoburbian Paradox and Corrective Ethnography 176
Conclusion: The Postracial Aesthetic and Class Visibility 201