ABSTRACT
Theorizing on the need to decolonize knowledge in the Western hemisphere and beyond, Augustin Laó-Montes reminds us that Afro-Latinidades are marginalized from hegemonic narratives of Africanity, Blackness, Latinidad, and Hispanicity and thus from the Black Atlantic, Latin America, Afro-America, and Afro-Caribbean definitions of identity and community. Writing at the intersection of U.S. Latinx and Latin American narratives of race, memory, ethnicity, and culture, the short-story collection Capá Prieto , 2009, by the Spanish-speaking Afro-Puerto Rican Yvonne Denis Rosario performs a critique of colonial/patriarchal practices that continue to organize contemporary regimes of power which perpetuate the marginalization of Black Puerto Ricans both on the island and the mainland. The study of the stories “El silenciamiento” (Silencing), “Periódicos de ayer” (Newspapers of Yesteryears), “Desaucio en el palmar” (Eviction), and “Ama de leche” (Wet Nurse) endorses the creation of new narratives that may help Afro-Latinx and Afro-Latin Americans to mobilize discourses of reparation and human rights in their ongoing struggle for recognition.
