UC Merced

This dissertation studies the identity formation and cultural production of Latin American authors of Arab descent. More specifically, it focuses on the strategies used by Arab-Latin American authors and cultural producers to build spaces of belonging and transform the cultural landscape of Latin America through the production of cultural artifacts such as travelogues, testimonies, short stories, novels, films, documentaries, and poetry. Since most of the research on the Arab presence in Latin America has been studied from socioeconomic and political perspectives, this study attempts to fill a vacuum in the study of contemporary cultural production of Arab and Latin American authors of Arab descent in two ways. First, from an interdisciplinary approach and the perspectives of postcolonial, decolonial, and affect theory lenses, this dissertation analyzes the cultural products of Arab-Latin Americans as emotional repositories that served as the basis for the creation of spaces of belonging where Arab-Latin American communities were able to not only survive but thrive and climb the social ladder as they immersed themselves into different countries across Latin America. Moreover, this study reflects on how these emotional repositories assisted in the development of self-identities and pride in Arab ancestry while simultaneously promoting the process that Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz identified as transculturation. Second, most studies on the relationship between the Middle East and Latin America have focused on the Arab people and Arab-Latin Americans as passive objects of study by analyzing their migratory patterns, socio-economic conditions and development, and political structures, among other topics. While this dissertation builds upon this prior research, it attempts to underscore Arab-Latin Americans' agency and self-definition of identities as it highlights their experiences and voices as agents of their own history.