Identities on the move: reading contemporary US/Caribbean women’s writing

Martínez, Yolanda Pampín (2006). Identities on the move: reading contemporary US/Caribbean women’s writing. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis, Identities on the Move: Reading Contemporary US/Caribbean Women’s Writing, addresses diverse manifestations of Latinas’ subjectivity formation in North America and in the Spanish Caribbean. The close readings of contemporary feminist literature written by Dominican Americans Julia Álvarez, Nelly Rosario, Loída Maritza Pérez and Angie Cruz, Cuban American Cristina García and Puerto Rican American Esmeralda Santiago demonstrate the importance that self-mutilating strategies, the discourse of the body, and mother-daughter relationships as metaphor for the national good have on the formation of Latinas’ identities. The negotiation of the hybrid self is also intrinsically related to topics such as the reconciliation of past and present through the motifs of the journey, language and memory in the writings of Julia Álvarez, Cristina García and Esmeralda Santiago, as well as through the connection of the migrant and the Diaspora experience exemplified in the work of Cristina García. In Julia Álvarez’s historiographic metafiction the relationship between gender and nation is textualised by including women’s voices within the national discourse. The readings of these works spring from postcolonial theories as well as from postmodern feminist discussions about fragmented subjectivity.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):