In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Mapping South American Latina/o Literature in the United States by Juanita Heredia
  • J. Andrea Carrillo (bio)
Juanita Heredia, Mapping South American Latina/o Literature in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. Pp. 238.

"How do you feel about/why do you use the term South American?" "How do you identify yourself?" These are two of Juanita Heredia's most pointed and telling questions to interviewees of South American descent in her latest book. Heredia's Mapping South American Latina/o Literature in the United States makes an innovative, deep, and enthusiastic contribution to the field of US/Latina/o literature by highlighting the experiences of twelve authors through interviews conducted between 2013 and 2015. Heredia seeks to explore and generate interest in the diversity of this group, which has received little scholarly attention, in contrast to more established Latina/o groups such as Chicanxs/Mexican Americans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans in a transnational context.

Through her methodology of conducting individual interviews with each author, Heredia aims to move trans-American literary studies in a new direction by expanding this field's canon and placing the experiences of the twelve authors in dialogue with a larger Latin American literary tradition. Heredia has used the interview genre effectively in the past to explore the subjectivities of her interviewees in her book Latina Self-Portraits: Interviews with Contemporary Women Writers (2000), coedited with Bridget Kevane, and successfully deploys it again with this varied group of South American authors. Heredia mentions that the [End Page 235] authors included have made friendships and alliances with other authors in South America, which signals what she calls a new change in US/Latina/o literature that desires to build literary bridges. Heredia highlights the literary bridges in her subjects' interviews by asking about influences from their countries of origin, which strengthens their constant—as opposed to terminal—connections with said countries of origin. Heredia's work is thorough; she asks her subjects perceptive questions about their lives, family heritage, reasons for migration, education, creative works and influences, and how they identify in the United States. The author is also very thoughtful in her mode of inquiry; her questions always explore deeper themes in her subjects' works. The sincere interest and tone in the interviews make evident that Heredia has taken the time to study these. This is how she brings the term South American to the foreground of the literary discussion.

The notion of movement is key in Heredia's work. Her subjects speak of a constant travel between the United States and South America, and at times Europe and the Middle East, not only a terminal journey to the United States. The motives for migration in her twelve cases are wide and include diasporas caused by economic, social, and political displacement in South America, Europe, and the Middle East in different periods within the twentieth century (1960–1990). For the sake of the reader, Heredia gives brief biographical sketches of each author with some historical background about their country to shed light on US–South American relations.

Heredia's goal is to create a foundation for critical work on South American US/Latina/o literature and advance work done by other scholars. Some researchers in the United States include José Luis Falconi and José Antonio Mazzotti, Suzanne Oboler, and Marylin Espitia. Falconi and Mazzotti authored The "Other" Latinos: Central and South Americans in the United States (2008), Oboler worked on a 2005 special issue of Latino Studies on South American Latinos, and Espitia wrote about South American migrants in the United States in 2004. A contemporary writer on the Latin American side is Eduardo Marceles Daconte (Colombia), who published 20 narradores colombianos en USA: Literatura colombiana de la diáspora en Estados Unidos in 2017. Marceles Daconte's work is a timely example of Heredia's comment on forming a dialogue with Latin America because it shows that South America is taking note of its own people's experiences in the United States. Heredia rightly points out that her twelve subjects create a new literary dialogue and epistemology between the Global North and Global South.

Heredia's book is organized into twelve chapters...

pdf

Share