UCLA

Performances of Mestizaje in 20th/21st Century Literature of the Americas examines the relationship between representation, performance, and colonial discourse by 1) tracing crucial flashpoints in the evolution of a literary, performative, critical mestizaje and 2) by tracking iterative, textual performances of what I call colonial scripts—iterations of social behaviors or systems of power that reproduce and normalize colonial violence and the logic of racial difference. The project moves through two key moments in history: the crisis of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the crisis of neo-liberialism of the late 20th century. Through a case study model, I use Latinx and Indigenous literature of the Americas—María Cristina Mena's short stories (1913-1931), Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo (2002), Leslie Marmon Silko's Almanac of the Dead (1991), and Mayra Montero's The Last Night I Spent with You (1991/2000)—that offer various regional representations of mestizaje. My dissertation uses literature to provide a comparative study of the ways in which mestizaje functions as both a discourse of dominance and resistance in a Mexican, Chicana, Indigenous, and Caribbean context. In considering these different contexts and their similar colonial histories, I argue that mestizaje can function as a space of creativity and cultural critique rather than as solely a tool of assimilation.