Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora (review)

268 Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies calles hacia el resto del paÃ-s. No es extraño entonces que el plato más famoso de esta región sea la tortilla española [...] cuya forma redonda simboliza la misma simetrÃ-a circular . (44) In addition to the already mentioned concerns, some will look unfavorably on the familiar use of "tú" and "Vosotros" in all discussion questions, especially when their use is not always standard: "¿Habéis visto alguna vez a un individuo sin hogar y de bajos recursos económicos en las calles de su pueblo o ciudad?" (141, emphasis mine). Others will not appreciate the use of a few Latin Americanisms within a text on Spanish civilization and culture. Also, the "Materiales Suplementarios" section is, at times, missing bibliographical information such as publisher or year of publication. At the end of the book there is an interesting "CronologÃ-a" that locates on a timeline imporranr evenrs in history, government, art and architecture, and literature. The "Glosario de términos literarios y artÃ-sticos" does an excellent job of defining many important concepts , but does not include terms associated with religion, politics, society, etc. Despite the drawbacks mentioned here, any text that takes on the challenging goal of representing Spanish culture in all its varied richness is a step in the right direction. Chad M. Gasta Iowa State University Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora Duke University Press, 2004 By Michelle M. Wright Becoming Black (2004) by Michelle Wright is a thoroughly investigated topic, written in a style and language which some readers might find difficult, even those who are involved in investigations about biracialism or reclaiming national roots, in order to authenticate themselves. Dr. Wright, an associate professor ar Macalister College, tells us in the well written introduction: In this book I argue rhat there is a twentieth-century intellectual tradition of African diasporic counter discourses of Black subjectivity that is defined not by a common history or a common cultural hope but by a particular theatrical methodology. (3) With this statement she begins to "complicate" the issue of ethnic and racial language by saying throughout all of the next five chapters, that we can no longer use the "old," "ethnically specific," but that "Black subjectivity must be negotiated" (3). The problem which arises with this position is that Wright immediately either alienates some readers or gains rheir allegiance. Very importantly, though, Wright defines the book's title which really helps and guides us to the following chapters. She says: In using the phrase 'becoming Black I do not mean to imply that, until the beginning of the twentieth century, peoples of African decent in die West were bereft of either an individual or a collective identity [...]. I use the term 'Black as a signifier for the complex negotiation berween dominant and minority cultures that all peoples of African descent in the west [...] 'becoming Black' highlights the fluidity of Black identity in the West, and our evolving understanding of it. (26) Wright then goes on to comment on postcolonial theorists Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha who negate and barely discuss peoples of African descent but do focus on those of South-Asian descent. This is a point well taken. Arizona Journal of Hispanic Cultural Studies 269 What happens then, is that there is an ongoing distrust of postcolonial scholars and theorists, because Black is hardly ever a part of that conversation . Wright, as a child of an AfricanAmerican diplomat and a Polish-Czech (white) mother, understood, clearly, what this exclusion means. Chapters Two and Three are refreshing discussions of blackness wherein she looks at the early slave narratives from Africa (Equiano), the Caribbean (Mary Prince) and the United States (Crummel, Walker, Delaney). She calls their work "counter-discourses" because they dispute anti-black discourses in which a kind of masking is displayed. She tells us that Fanon, WE.B. Dubois, Leopold Senghor and Aimé Cesaire also respond to the idea of Black inferiority which Hegel, Gobineau and Jefferson believed. The metaphors of "the veil" and "the mask," are used to frame a very good discussion of how African Diaspora peoples use creative ways to counter negative...