Invisible or inaudible? The representation of working-class immigrants in the short fiction of Junot Díaz
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13005100 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael F Jiménez (0000-0002-8988-6930, Universidad de Valladolid, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 27-38 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Short Fiction in Theory and Practice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2043-0701 • E-ISSN: 2043-071X |
| Publisher | Intellect (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1386/fict_00034_1 |
| OpenAlex | W3185285535 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
In Junot Díaz’s short story collections, Drown (1996) and This Is How You Lose Her (2012), sound plays a crucial role in the representation of the experiences of the Dominican migrants in the United States who populate their pages. The collections show the liminal situations which the stories’ characters face, emphasizing their shifting acoustic environments and the pressure to shape one’s own sonic identity to meet the demands of the new language and culture. The experiences of these Dominican migrants – particularly how they are targeted by the Americans they encounter because of their accents – reflect the politics of a cultural neo-racism which differs from the discourse of colonial Otherness but which bears the same monocultural logic. As such, the stories’ migrants become silenced rather than invisible. At the same time, a belief in the power of the Other’s personal and culturally specific voice as a transformative element is emphasized in these collections with Díaz’s use of Spanish and the narrator’s persistent presence throughout all of the stories
Aesthetics · Art · Element (criminal law · Face (sociological concept · Identity (music · Immigration · Liminality · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Racism · Representation (politics · Sociology · Transformative learning · Anthropology · Gender Studies · History · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Poetry Analysis and Criticism · Short Stories in Global Literature
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |