ABSTRACT

Attending to critical race studies that shed light on the multiple positionalities from which people of color apprehend William Shakespeare opens the door to cross-cultural understandings of his works. La Mollie’s narrator, Louie Mendoza, negotiates apprehensions about his imagined place in America – sometimes drawing on encounters with Shakespeare to do so. These encounters lay bare Chicanx apprehensions about linguistic, and national identity, as access to Shakespeare is almost always governed by access to language and power. In school, Louie grapples with linguistic terrorism the more he engages with Shakespeare. Arturo Islas recognizes expected norms about the way Shakespeare should be spoken and pits that against the unique nature of borderland epistemologies. Leila P. Harper introduces Shakespeare by employing a feigned British accent. The issue of assimilation influences how Latinxs engage Shakespeare, because appropriations that deviate from established ideas about his language and whiteness often lead to impressions of a less authentic Shakespeare and less legitimate consumers of his work.