| Afro-Latino Memoirs and their African American Influences
Research and writing of a book examining
Afro-Latino memoirists’ use of African American aesthetics across the 20th century.
Under contract with the University of North Carolina Press, Afroethnic Renewal: Afro-Latino Memoirs and their African American Influences, examines understudied African American narrative strategies, cultural tropes, and political genealogies in contemporary Afro-Latino coming-of-age memoirs. Using literary and historical analysis, I argue that Afro-Latino memoir writers use their affiliation with the African American condition to authenticate and assert their sense of national and diasporic belonging. The coherence of Afro-Latinidad, I contend, can be better understood by analyzing the depth and scope of its influence by Black nationalism and cosmopolitanism. The book finds that Afro-Latinos are shaping US culture in ways that open and extend the conventional definitions of African American literature and identity. I am applying for an NEH Summer Stipend to research and write the chapter on Marta Moreno Vega’s memoir When the Spirits Dance Mambo: Growing Up Nuyorican in El Barrio.
[Grant products]
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Project fields:
African American Studies; American Literature; Hispanic American Studies
Program:
Summer Stipends
Division:
Research Programs
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Totals:
$6,000 (approved)
$6,000 (awarded)
Grant period:
6/1/2021 – 7/31/2021
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