UCLA

The Work of Movement Literatures: Images of Labor in 1960s and 1970s African American and Latinx Writing tracks the depiction of labor in 1960s and 1970s US movement literature. My three chapters examine the ways in which authors involved in the Black Arts Movement, the Chicano Movement, and the Nuyorican Movement developed urgent critiques of labor by representing the struggles of Black and Brown workers. Each chapter offers a study of how a central author of US movement literature constructs a particular story about the meaning of labor for racialized populations. I look at how the writing of Gwendolyn Brooks, Oscar Zeta Acosta, and Pedro Pietri respond to the world of work by depicting the arduous experiences of workers either absorbed in or excluded from the formal labor market. These writers engage the labor of several kinds of workers, constructing critiques of different working environments and practices.