Latin American Literature Commons^™

Centering Community Voices Through Children's Literature: Co-Authoring An #Ownvoices Picture Book For The Maine Migrant Education Program, Melanie Shelton

Master's Theses

Since its inception, the field of migrant education has been characterized by a tension between honoring the subjectivity of migrant families and positioning them as victims. This same tension exists in the analysis of children’s picture books that depict the daily lives of migrant farmworkers. In response to Eve Tuck’s (2009) call for a moratorium on damage-centered research in the field of education, this report describes the collaboration process between a representative of the Maine Migrant Education Program and a migrant

farmworker and her family to write, illustrate, and present an autobiographical picture book. Las aventuras, travesuras, y peligros del …

José Martí: The World's Most Popular Poetry, And A Vision For The Americas, Anne O. Fountain

Faculty Publications

This chapter begins with a capsule biographical sketch that situates José Martí as an agent of decolonization. It discusses Martí's place in literature, especially Spanish American letters, his transcultural importance, his work in translation, his role in the history of Cuban–US relations, and his vision for US relations with Latin America. It demonstrates the extraordinary international reach of his most popular writing by giving close attention to how two works, a book of poetry, Simple Verses (Versos Sencillos) and an essay, “Our America” (“Nuestra América”) have come to represent him to an increasingly broad audience.

Female Experience Of Trauma And Mourning In Two Postconflict Novels Of El Salvador And Peru: Roza, Tumba, Quema By Claudia Hernández, And La Sangre De La Aurora By Claudia Salazar, Raquel Castro Salas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on how literature approaches the Salvadoran and Peruvian armed conflicts and contributes with perspectives of the female experience while offering illustrations of mourning processes. It is based on a close analysis of two postconflict novels that emerged after the publication of the corresponding truth commissions final reports. These novels are Roza, tumba, quema (2017) by Claudia Hernández from El Salvador, and La sangre de la aurora (2013) by Claudia Salazar from Peru. The contributions studied in this analysis focus on two areas: (1) a problematization of the female experience of the armed conflicts, and (2) a focus …

"La Llorona": Evolución, Ideología Y Uso En El Mundo Hispano, Raquel Sáenz-Llano

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis studies the evolution, ideology and use of the myth of La Llorona through time in the Hispanic World. Considering this myth as one of the most known traditional narratives of the American continent, I begin by providing visual, ethnohistorical and ethnographical insights of weeping in Mesoamerica and South America and the specific mention of a weeping woman in some Spanish chronicles to say how western values were stablished in “the new continent” through this legend. I suggest that during the postcolonialism the legend did not tell anymore about a mother that cries and search a place for their …

Two Cultures, One Identity: Biculturalism Of Young Mexican Americans, Janela Aida Salazar

Theses and Dissertations--Community & Leadership Development

The purpose of this study was to explore the daily life of the younger generation of Mexican Americans through a phenomenology design. Specifically, in regard to how the culture-sharing pattern of biculturalism is reflected in their lives and the way they construct their bicultural identity. The study utilized rich qualitative data to paint a clear and descriptive picture of the internal process of biculturalism within eight Mexican American college students. Ultimately, the data analysis aimed to collect and reflect their voices and the stories. This was done through three distinct data methods that complemented each other: interviews (oral), photo elicitation …

El Negro Y El Haitiano En La Literatura Dominicana De La Diáspora, Juan Nicolás Tineo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis analyzes the diverse representations of blackness and Haitian culture in the literary works of the Dominican diaspora. First, the texts of the Dominican diaspora that highlight Africa are analyzed in order to determine to what extent these works represent real historical and social phenomena accurately, and in what ways these texts question or present other realities that have not been studied by the critics. It may be said that the writers of the diaspora allude to their African heritage because it was in the United States that they discovered their true racial identities. It is because of this …

The Other At War: Performing The Spanish-Cuban-American War On U.S. And Cuban Stages, Juan R. Recondo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Spanish-Cuban-American War, declared by the United States on April 25, 1898, marks a colonial shift in the history of the Caribbean and solidified the expansionist thrust of the United States outside national borders. Theatres in turn-of-the-century New York, which at this point was one of the theatrical centers of the nation, debated for audiences the imperialist character of the U.S. The Cuban struggle and the resulting Spanish-Cuban-American War permeated U.S. drama, thereby portraying a Caribbean in need of salvation by the military intervention of the United States. New York stages of the time became locations where various cultural representations …

“La Culpa Es De Los Tlaxcaltecas”: Gender, The Burden Of Blame, And A Re-Examination Of The Myth Of La Malinche, Erin M. Lanza

Student Publications

This paper explores Elena Garro’s short story “La culpa es de los tlaxcaltecas.” Supplementing close readings with analyses drawn from relevant authors and theorists, I highlight the key ideas regarding gender, identity, memory, and history that Garro weaves into her text, and I consider Garro’s emphasis on patriarchal control, the internalization of female culpability for the Spanish Conquest of Mexico, and women’s role in constructing and reconstructing historical discourses. By travelling into her own and Mexico’s past, Laura Aldama, one of the main female protagonists in the story, not only challenges gendered histories but also reveals how patriarchal thought continues …

Los Códices: An Exhibit Of Illustrated Books From Indigenous Mesoamerica, Jacob S. Neely

Hispanic Studies Student Research

This is an exhibit of facsimile codices housed in the University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections Research Center.

The exhibit is on display in the Great Hall on the second floor of the Margaret I. King Library at the University of Kentucky from September 17, 2018 to November 9, 2018.

The exhibit is also available online.

La Representación De Los Ecuatorianos En España: El Discurso Como Expresión De Poder, Racismo E Ideologías, Francesco Masala

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

This dissertation focuses on the representation of Ecuadorians in Spain between 2000 and 2015 in literature, film and the press. After enduring a decade of economic, climatic, and political problems, more than 175,000 Ecuadorians emigrated to Spain in 2001 alone (Herrera 2005). This process marked the beginning of a major migratory movement which has caused Spain to become a premier destination. The response to such migration has been disparate, yet both Ecuadorian and Spanish artists as well as the Spanish press have shown the different perspectives related to a discriminatory ideology. This dissertation focuses on three cultural products and three …

Neo-Stoicism And Skepticism In Part One Of “Don Quijote”: Removing The Authority Of A Genre. Daniel Lorca. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. Ix 1 158 Pp. $80., Damian Bacich

Faculty Publications

It is no surprise that a work of the stature of Don Quixote continues to engender debate among scholars more than four centuries after its publication. Neo-Stoicism and Skepticism in Part One of “Don Quijote” by Daniel Lorca enters the fray by addressing Cervantes’s intention in writing the novel and the strategy he used to achieve his goal. As Cervantes himself tells us in the prologue to Don Quixote, his aim in writing the novel is to do away with the popularity of chivalric romances. But did Cervantes intend to discredit an entire literary genre simply through ridicule? Or was …

Monstrous Dolls: The Abject Body In Rosario Ferré’S Works, Mackenzie Fraser

Senior Theses

In this Honors Thesis project, I examine two literary texts, “The Youngest Doll” (1991) and The House on the Lagoon (1995), by Puerto Rican author Rosario Ferré (1938-2016) with attention to her depiction of the abject female body as a figure analyzed by both theories of gender and the subaltern. Using these critical frameworks as well as my own textual analysis, I argue that Ferré offers a postcolonial feminist critique of the double oppression—patriarchal and colonial— operating upon her female Puerto Rican characters. Yet these women also turn this abjection into transgression, allowing Ferré to expose the paradoxes of female …

Diversas De Sí, Entre El Hoy Y El Ayer: Rememoria De Tres Íconos Femeninos Espirituales, La Condesa De Malibrán, Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz Y La Falsa Teresa De Jesús, Ana Gabriela Hernandez Gonzalez 5059749397

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

This dissertation traces the cultural memory of three magical/religious women of the colonial period: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, La Condesa de Malibrán and La Falsa Teresa de Jesús. It studies these icons specifically in three different discourses that construct cultural identities in Mexico: colonial discourse (XVI-XVII Centuries), the discourse of national consolidation (XIX-XX centuries) and postcolonial discourse (XX-XIX Centuries). First I describe how the narratives of the colonial period and of national consolidation employ an official lens to place magical/religious women within traditional gender roles. Then I delineate how historical novels in the 21st century employ a postcolonial …

“Tú Hablas Ahora:” Viequense Female Archetype And Agency In The Works Of Carmelo Rodríguez Torres, Emma T. Comery

Kentucky Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship

Author Carmelo Rodríguez Torres incorporates many of his experiences with the U.S. naval occupation of Vieques, Puerto Rico into his novels and short stories. Few scholars have written on Torres, and even fewer have discussed him in terms of womanhood and feminism. Yet central to many of his works are figures of womanhood that are at once archetypal and progressive. In my paper I investigate Torres' treatment of his female characters in all his novels and two of his short stories. I place his presentation of women within the context of the U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico and its feminist …

Fragmentation And Multiplicity In Cuban-American Identity: In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd By Ana Menéndez And Memory Mambo By Achy Obejas, Daimys E. Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maria Lugones offers a new way of perceiving the world, which makes visible that fragmentation is not a valuable and transgressive understanding of identity, as Western philosophy and some political theory suggests. What Lugones believes in, as a strategy of resistance to the dominant gaze, is multiplicity – mestizaje. Using Lugones’s framework, this thesis will look at the different aspects of Cuban-American characters in In Cuba I was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez and Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas. Each novel offers insight into how characters develop and understand themselves (and others) when they use language that shows that …

Una Niña Decente… ¿E Inocente?: La Intersección De Clase Y Raza En Ana Isabel, Una Niña Decente De Antonia Palacios, Nathan J. Schmid

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

This paper explores the social changes, divisions, and hierarchies that are present in Antonia Palacios’ novel Ana Isabel, una niña decente (1949). Employing Marxist Literary Theory as a basis for investigation and analysis, the paper illustrates the complexities of class and race, ultimately demonstrating how these two concepts are both intimately related and interdependent. As a result of the transition from feudalism to capitalism within Venezuelan society, longstanding traditions of social status and power are threatened, leading some to attempt to manipulate social structures concerning class and race in order to preserve family prestige. The parents of the novel’s main …

A Monastery For The Revolution: Ernesto Cardenal, Thomas Merton, And The Paradox Of Violence In Nicaragua, 1957-1979, Brendan Jordan

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

In 1957, a young Nicaraguan poet named Ernesto Cardenal, recently graduated from Columbia University, entered the Trappist Abbey of Gethsemani, located outside Louisville, Kentucky. There he met a prominent Catholic thinker and pacifist, Thomas Merton, who soon mentored young Cardenal. Though Cardenal departed Gethsemani in 1959, Merton continued to counsel him in spirituality, poetry, and social activism until Merton’s death in 1968. While Cardenal during these earlier years was a committed pacifist, his experiences after returning to Nicaragua in 1965 radically altered his view of social action. Cardenal established a semi-monastic community in the Solentiname islands in southern Nicaragua, and …

El Ex-Hombre: Masculinidad Y Exilio En La Poesía De Juan José Domenchina, Iker González-Allende

Spanish Language and Literature Papers

This article analyzes the representation of masculinity in Juan José Domenchina’s poetry of exile. The article argues that, during his last 20 years of life in exile (1939–1959), Domenchina shows in his poetry a contradictory masculinity. On the one hand, he reaffirms normative masculinity by rejecting pompous demonstrations of suffering, describing himself as stoic, tough, strong-willed and independent, and praising nostalgically Castilian men’s hypermasculine behavior. On the other hand, Domenchina’s poetry also testifies to his feelings of emasculation, since he calls himself an “ex-man”, shows his masculine fragmentation with the figures of the doppelganger or shadow, identifies himself with a …

Beyond The Nation: Issues Of Identity In The Contemporary Narrative Of Cuban Women Writing (In) The Diaspora, Yvette Fuentes

CAHSS Faculty Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation traces the narrative of contemporary Cuban women writers from their early work published in Cuba through their Diaspora narratives. It explores the discursive and narrative techniques that contemporary Cuban women deploy in their narratives to challenge Cuba's dominant cultural constructions of national and gendered identity. I posit that contemporary Cuban women's narratives produced on and off the island display aislamiento (isolation) that serves as a means of "talking back" to Cuba's patriarchal discourses. The introduction presents an overview of recent debates on nation, gender and identity within the context of contemporary Cuban literary history and feminist theory. Chapter …

The Sexual Democracy Of Miscegenation: Jossianna Arroyo Examines The Homoerotic Narratives Of The Father Of Racial Democracy, Marcelo Montes Penha

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Investigations of the sexual Other generally attempt to explain sexual practices by characterizing their practitioners as "homosexual" or "gay." Jossianna Arroyo, Assistant Professor of Spanish at the University of Michigan, went beyond this approach during her March 28 colloquium presentation, "Brazilian Homoerotics: Cultural Subjectivity and Representation in Gilberto Freyre." Arroyo explores not just sexual practices but also the construction of the Brazilian nation through a reading of Gilberto Freyre's two novels, Dona Sinha e o Filho Padre (1964) and O Outro Amor de Dr. Paulo (1977).

Crossing Borders '99: Autobiography And Testimonials By Lesbian And Gay Latino/As And Latin Americans, Oscar Montero

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

On March 13-19, 1999, the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies will revisit an important theme that emerged at the ground-breaking Crossing Borders conference. Crossing Borders '99: Latino/a and Latin American Lesbian and Gay Testimony, Autobiography, and Self-Figuration will focus on autobiographical writing, testimony, and self-figuration by Latin American and Latino/a lesbians and gay men, inviting artists and scholars from different geographical areas and diverse academic fields to share and discuss their works and lived experiences.