Monica Hanna is Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
Jennifer Harford Vargas is Assistant Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College.
José David Saldívar is Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and the author of
Monica Hanna is Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
Jennifer Harford Vargas is Assistant Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College.
José David Saldívar is Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and the author of
Monica Hanna is Assistant Professor of Chicana and Chicano Studies at California State University, Fullerton.
Jennifer Harford Vargas is Assistant Professor of English at Bryn Mawr College.
José David Saldívar is Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University and the author of
Now Check It: Junot Díaz’s Wondrous Spanglish
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Published:January 2016
This chapter provides a black, Atlantic reading of Díaz’s diasporic craft, particularly his sharp-witted eloquence in representing the complexities of Afro-Latinidad and black-brown alliances. It argues that Díaz breaks from conventions set by U.S. immigrant classics like Roth’s Call It Sleep and builds on the work of Afro-Latinos like Thomas’s Down These Mean Streets, producing an Afro-Latino/a literature that takes race as a given and shifts narrative attention to language. Díaz’s writing focuses on artistic craft and uses language to represent what it means be black, Latino, and an immigrant in the U.S. Díaz’s narrative representation of this experience is important because most Latino/a writers have used poetry to render and experiment with black and Latino street slang. The chapter explores the ways the African diaspora, U.S. imperialism, and the exodus of Dominicans to the United States are interrelated in Díaz’s work through his wondrous use of language.
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