In the context of American imperialism, what role does the interracial/interethnic literary romance play? Do these romances offer the possibility of integrating politically disparate elements, or do these literary unions reveal the conflicts of nation-building at a time of territorial expansion? Drawing upon Doris Sommer's work on heterosexual romances and Robert McKee Irwin's work on homosocial bonds and both authors studies on nation-formation in Latin America, I explore interethnic/interracial unions in works by American and Latino writers and analyze the role these fictional romances and unions serve in representing the inclusion of new peoples and the formation of American national identity at the time of territorial expansion. The texts examined include Helen Hunt Jackson's Ramona, María Amparo Ruiz de Burton's The Squatter and the Don, Elizabeth Van Deusen's collection short story readers, Stories of Porto Rico and Tropical Tales (Porto Rico) and Manuel Zeno Gandía's Redentores. Through their use of the interracial/interethnic romance and unions, I argue that these writers reveal the complications of the larger geopolitical unions being constructed by the United States in the second half of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth century. These texts show the potentially subversive power that love, the romance trope, and related themes and homosocial bonds may have in a genre that traditionally emphasizes unions; in addition these works demonstrate that in unions—whether romantic or political—tensions will always persist. Lastly, these texts also demonstrate the frailty of using the nation-as-lovers as the emblematic trope of a nation that will hold within it multiple unions. Issues discussed include how romance is constructed, including the allusions, metaphors, plot devices, and motifs incorporated to tell the story of that romance; representation of these unions in light of United States' anti-miscegenation laws; the construction of consent; education and the lessons of domesticity.

This dissertation presents a study of the poetry of Jose Joaquin Perez. His writings formulate an aesthetic, national and social program. From this perspective, descriptive poetry and pro-Amerindian poetry are analyzed as poetic discourse which represents the founding of a nation and of a poetic art form for literature. These aspects are analyzed as a function of poetic agents which represent national themes and language. These themes and this language have been highlighted by critics as the factors which define these writings. At the same time, the progressive lyric of Perez is analyzed as a discourse which reflects a social program for a nation. This stems from the interpretations the poet makes of positivist doctrines of his time. The first chapter presents the literary enclaves which frame Jose Joaquin Perez's poetry. The study focuses on an analysis of Santo Domingo's Romantic lyric, paying close attention to its most recurrent themes. Here, the most representative writers of this type of discourse are also presented. In addition, the dissertation focuses on extant criticism on the poet's work and Perez's own literary criticism. Chapters two and three present the theoretical framework for analyzing the texts. Chapter two pays special attention to the tradition of foundational and programmatic characters of Romantic lyric of Spanish-America. Here, the concept of Romanticism, as it is used in this work, is defined. Also highlighted are the critics who have studied this tradition, followed by an explanation based on themes and ideas. This helps explain the foundational writing that descriptive and pro-Amerindian poets of this period have developed. Also in this chapter, the interpretations of the positivist doctrine in Spanish-America are presented, as well as the social character of Spanish-American Romanticism. The third chapter elaborates on the language factors that Angloamerican and Spanish-American criticism have determined to be agents in foundational writings. In chapter four, the poems of Jose Joaquin Perez are analyzed, based on that which has been proposed in this dissertation. Chapter five contains the conclusions of this work.

Maria Luisa Puga y Rosario Ferre como escritoras latinoamericanas comprometen su labor literaria como un vehiculo para articular un discurso descolonizador. Sus narrativas llevaran al lector por mundos y periodos tan diversos como similares, ya que parten de la misma hipotesis de trabajo, a decir, recordar que la realidad latinoamericana es una resultante de un proceso colonizador. Su narrativa utiliza estrategicamente la fragmentacion discursiva y la incorporacion del discurso testimonial para crear una apertura simbolica en el fenomeno de la colonizacion. Para el estudio de sus obras se han tomado en cuenta conceptos marxistas (Eagleton, Jameson) para establacer realciones entre lo politico/economico y el devenir social e individual, que se extienden hasta la polemica de los derechos humanos (Vidal). Puga en Las posibilidades del odio presenta una serie de personajes kenianos, cuyas vidas atestiguan los cambios que la colonizacion les trajera, asi como la desolacion en que se encuentran tras luchas internas por su determinacion nacional. De estos, la joven Nyambura ocupa un lugar predominate en la narrativa, y es a traves de su historia familiar y personal que se incurre en el acto simbolico de liberacion. Rosario Ferre en Maldito amor lleva al lector por un recorrido historico en la vida de Puerto Rico. La familia De la Valle personifica y establece el borde dentro del cual se circunscribe la experiencia colinizante del pais, siendo dos mujeres mulatas, Titina y Gloria, las que al final estan por quemar todo signo de traicion, de explotacion economica y de discriminacion racial. El discurso decolonizante femenino y de lo femenino que se desprende por la lectura es uno en que el Sujeto, al politizarse, se posesiona del lenguaje para describir el asombro, la violencia y la perplejidad de la fuerza colonizadora ante la lucha del Sujeto por su reinvindicacion social y por sus derechos humanos. Puga y Ferre, como escritoras latinoamericanas, se inscriben en la tradicion de un contra-discurso (Cunningham) que refiere a un cambio cualitativo de su insercion y participacion en la Historia. i

El tema de esta disertación, La poética del bolero en Cuba y Puerto Rico, es el resultado de nuestro interés por contestarnos algunas preguntas que por muchos años quisimos responder, aunque sus respuestas parecían evidentes para los estudios formales de la literatura cubana y la puertorriqueña. La pregunta generalizada era: ¿cuáles son los lazos culturales que unen las historias de Cuba y Puerto Rico? Las respuestas parecían encontrarse en la literatura y en la música. Es por esto que esta disertación resultó ser de carácter interdisciplinario al proponernos estudiar el género del “bolero” como fenómeno cultural poético-musical. El bolero resultó la excusa para asomarnos tanto a la historia de la literatura y la música cubana como puertorriqueña en busca de sus orígenes y desarrollo y con la intención de observar si de verdad exiten esos lazos culturales y cuáles son. Es por esto que el capítulo II pretende hacer un estudio minucioso sobre el Romanticismo en ambas islas. En éste establecemos cuáles son las poetas y músicos fundacionales en ambas naciones, sus estilos y sus propósitos. Sin pretender entrar en comparaciones vamos descubriendo los puntos de contacto que comienzan a enlazar culturalmente a ambas islas en los que el interés por definir “la nación” es el temas principal. La lucha por la definición, reafirmación y liberación nacional fue el motivo que generó muchos encuentros poéticos y musicales durante el siglo XIX. En el capítulo III repetimos la metodología del primero para estudiar el origen, desarrollo y culminación del movimiento Modernista en ambas naciones. Es en éste en el que desarrollamos el tema del bolero con más detalle porque es justo en este período de la historicidad de ambas naciones cuando el bolero alcanza su madurez. Con el objetivo de delinear los rasgos románticos o modernistas del bolero examinamos las letras de los boleros de los compositores más significativos, siguiendo el orden cronológico-historicista que la metodología de la investigación supone. El capítulo IV está dedicado a la aportación de las mujeres cubanas y puertorriqueñas tanto en el quehacer poético como musical-bolerístico. La mirada filosófica de este estudio intenta acercarse a los postulados que Gilles Deleuze asume en algunos de sus textos.

During the latter part of the 19th century, the Peruvian writer Ricardo Palma's Tradiciones peruanas, and the Cuban writer Julian del Casal's literary criticism, were widely read by many Latin Americans. Yet, some one hundred years later, Palma's work would be generally ignored by literary critics, though it would continue to be read and enjoyed by the general public. Del Casal's literary criticism would be completely forgotten, and the author himself would come to be viewed as an apolitical, anti-Cuban, escapist who accepted his country's colonial status without protesting. The present work constitutes a reevaluation of Palma's work and of del Casal's literary criticism, as well as of the latter's political involvement. A reading of Palma's Tradiciones peruanas based on the reading of Francois Rabelais' work carried out by Mikhail Bakhtin in his book Rabelais and His World, demonstrates that literary critics have been unjust with Palma by judging his work according to the canons and esthetics of refined, written literature, when in fact that work was meant to be popular, oral literature, with totally different literary characteristics and a totally different esthetic. Thus, the "defects" perceived by literary critics in Palma's work are really qualities and characteristics of popular, orally-oriented literature. Likewise, a reading of del Casal's "lost" critical prose, finally reedited in 1963 by the Cuban National Culture Council, demonstrates that he was very proud of being Cuban, much more political than is generally thought, and a patriot who risked his welfare by protesting his country's colonial condition. It also shows the excellence of his incisive and prophetic, modernist, literary criticism which called attention to the works of many new Latin American authors and made known to Latin Americans some of the most important European writers of his day.

This study reveals the differences and similarities among U.S. Latino and Spanish American literatures. This is achieved through the juxtaposition and dialogue among Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban; Richard Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory and Days of Obligation ; Rosario Castellano's Balún Canán, and Reinaldo Arenas' Antes que anochezca. In choosing texts from Mexico and Cuba we are seeking to reveal contrasts and links with the Chicano and Cuban-American narratives. Similarly, by selecting said texts and authors, there is a balance between issues of sexual gender and orientation, as well as in regards to the original language in which the texts were conceived. In their quest for identity from a marginal starting point, all four authors aim to create a response to hegemony. We approach these texts from the theoretical parameters of the studies of autobiography, with a special emphasis on Bildungsroman, since their protagonists see their self-formation as a process that would enable them to behave in a functional manner in the communities they are immersed. It is from this marginal position that values such as family and education question the power of traditional hegemony. Another element that subverts the establishment is the treatment of gender and sexuality in the texts. Since the protagonists' identity is conceived from a women's or a homosexual standpoint, traditional values are questioned. Finally, the analysis of the texts deals with their relationship to the imagined national space. Castellanos and Rodriguez approach the concept of nation though the indigenous question. Garcia and Arenas relate to Cuba by way of their comment on the Castrist Revolution. The different narratives of the self that make up this study place their voices in the intestitial space of the periphery. It is from that space that they address the center in a variety of ways.

Transnational black American women writers' literary renderings of "home" evidence an intersectional relationship among black American literature and cultures. This dissertation analyzes, through the trope of home, these authors' portrayals of the multiplicity of experiences informing black American women's lives and identities both domestically and transnationally. Embracing the transnationalism of black American female subjects, as well as a paradigm of intersectionality, this dissertation creates a framework that challenges not only canon formation with regards to black women's literature in the Americas, but also the rigidity surrounding racial/ethnic and national identities generally. To this end, it distinguishes itself from other scholarship that has largely analyzed these women's writings comparatively or within a larger diasporic framework---which, while insightful, tends to undermine the impact and specificity of "New World" or black American cultures. This dissertation consists of an Introduction that delineates "intersectionality," explicating its significance and relational aspects to what I refer to as "transnational black American." Chapter I analyzes how these black women writers' representations of home problematize "nation"; and, it situates the novels within particular historical, sociopolitical, gendered, and literary contexts. Chapter II investigates Paule Marshall's depictions of African American and Caribbean settings as homespaces integral to protagonist Avey Johnson's black cultural consciousness and healing in Praisesong for the Widow. Chapter III examines the ways Haiti and the United States serve as sites of female sexual violation in Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory . Chapter IV analyzes Toni Morrison's and Opal Palmer Adisa's delineations of African American women's attempts to establish a homespace and connection to their "black woman-ness" in transnational black American settings in Tar Baby and It Begins with Tears, respectively. Lastly, the Conclusion underscores this dissertation's significance in its challenging the rigidity of not only African American and Caribbean literary canons and their respective criticisms, but national boundaries and spaces, as well.

This dissertation examines how the work of four Puerto Rican poets – Julia de Burgos, Clemente Soto Vélez, Martín Espada, and Naomi Ayala – demonstrates a poetics of resistance. While resistance takes a variety of forms in their poetic discourse, this project asserts that these poets have and continue to play an integral role in the cultural decolonization of Puerto Rico, which has been generally unacknowledged in both the critical scholarship on their work and the narrative of Puerto Rico’s anti-colonial struggle. Chapter One discuses the theoretical concepts used in defining a poetics of resistance, including Barbara Harlow’s definition of resistance literature, Edward Said’s concepts of cultural decolonization, and Jahan Ramazani’s theory of transnational poetics. Chapter Two provides an overview of Puerto Rico’s unique political status and highlights several pivotal events in the nation’s history, such as El Grito de Lares, the Ponce Massacre, and the Vieques Protest to demonstrate the continuity of the Puerto Rican people’s resistance to oppression and attempted subversion of their colonial status. Chapter Three examines Julia de Burgos’ understudied poems of resistance and argues that she employs a rhetoric of resistance through the use of repetition, personification, and war imagery in order to raise the consciousness of her fellow Puerto Ricans and to provoke her audience into action. By analyzing Clemente Soto Vélez’s use of personification, anaphora, and most importantly, juxtaposition, Chapter Four demonstrates that his poetry functions as a dialectical process and contends that the innovative form he develops throughout his poetic career reinforces his radical perspective for an egalitarian society. Chapter Five illustrates how Martín Espada utilizes rich metaphor, sensory details, and musical imagery to foreground issues of social class, racism, and economic exploitation across geographic, national, and cultural borders. Chapter six traces Naomi Ayala’s feminist discourse of resistance that denounces social injustice while simultaneously expressing a female identity that seeks liberation through her understanding of history, her reverence for memory, and her relationship with the earth. Ultimately, this dissertation argues that Burgos, Soto Vélez, Espada, and Ayala not only advocate for but also enact resistance and social justice through their art.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to understand the emergence of Afro Hispanic American Literature and the causes that delayed its emergence at the end of the twentieth century. I study this process through three novels written in the last decades of the twentieth century as works representative of three national literatures that develop concurrently. These novels are Changó, el gran putas (1983) by Afro-Colombian writer Manuel Zapata Olivella, Jonatás y Manuela (1994) by Afro-Ecuadorian writer Luz Argentina Chiriboga and Malambo (2001) by Afro Peruvian writer Lucía Charún Illescas. The study of these three novels from within their own literary contexts allows for the tracing of national and international developments that made possible the emergence of these minority voices. On the other hand, by placing these texts in a broader historical context allows us to chart a cartography of African roots that although begins in the Caribbean; its horizon expands beyond the Caribbean proper and into the continent. Thus, each novel represents a moment in the African saga in the Americas, a new vision of its history and complex social landscape; and finally a new proposal for the future. Zapata Olivella proposes mestizaje as the ontological base in which Latin American reality was founded and points towards the existence of an African consciousness that is transcontinental. Luz Argentina Chiriboga presents us with the intimate side of history through the tale of two women: Manuela Sáenz and Jonatás, her slave, that represent two sides of the story. Lucía Charún Illescas reconstructs life in Malambo an old slave barracks in colonial Lima and through it unveils hidden worlds in our history. Each novel reconstucts hidden recesses of our history and thus force us to engage in a meaningful dialogue with it and with ourselves.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Illinois State University, 2000. / Title from title page screen, viewed May 4, 2006. Dissertation Committee: John Shields (chair), Lucia Getsi, Nancy Tolson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 179-190) and abstract. Also available in print.