Revolving-Door Life Writing: Literature and Cinema of Puerto Rican Women (American Studies - A Monograph #232)

Description

Revolving-Door Life Writing is about selected Puerto Rican female (im)migrant authors and filmmakers on the East Coast of the United States. The focus of this study lies on the hybrid and partly transnational cultural identities of these life writers. Since Nuyorican and "NuRican" life writing undermines the given context of the (neo-)colonial status, decisive attempts at decolonisation take place. The authors use the rather subversive strategy of jaibaria, a Puerto Rican folk tactic; the filmmakers are more overt with their tools of directness voiced in confrontation and provocation. Combining psychology, sociology and postcolonial studies in an interdisciplinary approach within the realm of Transnational American Studies, this work reveals "living in-between" as a difficult yet decisive experience leading to a conscious and active support of a shared humanity.