ABSTRACT

This book interrogates the identity politics involved in framing Colombian diasporas, examining the ways that creative writers, directors, performers and artists negotiate collective and personal experiences that shape their identities through their art and cultural productions.

New consideration of the diversity of Afro-Latin American and Indigenous communities within the overarching categorization of "Colombianness" or Colombianidad have led to increased focus on the representation of Colombia and Colombian diasporic communities. By focusing on different cultural productions—novels, memoirs, films, plays and visual arts—this book analyzes the performance of Colombianidad by communities throughout the diaspora. Topics include Afro-Colombian, US Latinx, Caribbean and queer identity, marginalization of racialized bodies within Colombia and the Colombian diaspora, and the politics of identity representation. Colombian Diasporic Identities: Representations in Literature, Film, Theater and Art examines how a consciously Colombian diasporic existence travels and is altered across geographic locales.

Colombian Diasporic Identities will be key reading for scholars and students in US Latinx studies, and Latin American diasporic studies, together with ethnic studies, gender studies, queer studies and literature.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|40 pages

Visualizing the invisible

The novels of Patricia Engel

chapter 2|41 pages

Queering Caribbean identity and language

LGBTQ+ novels and memoirs from the Colombian diaspora; Jaime Manrique, Julián Delgado Lopera and Daisy Hernández

chapter 3|33 pages

Diasporic hair

Mapping out Afro-Colombian identity in the film La Playa D.C. (2012)

chapter 4|26 pages

Remixing, repeating and reinterpreting

John Leguizamo on being a Ghetto Klown

chapter 5|14 pages

Reappropriating impositions

A conversation with Gonzalo Fuenmayor 1