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Introduction. Notes on Triangulation: Navigating Latina/o Identity
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1 Introduction Notes onTriangulation Navigating Latina/o Identity What we [authors] do might be done in solitude and with great desperation, but it tends to produce exactly the opposite. It tends to produce community and in many people hope and joy. —Junot Díaz, Bostonist Interview Hegemony has so constructed the ideas of method and theory that often we cannot recognize anything that is different from what the dominant discourse constructs. As a consequence, we have to look in nontraditional places for our theories: in the prefaces to anthologies, in the interstices of autobiographies, in our cultural artifacts (the cuentos). —Sonia Saldívar-Hull, Feminism on the Border Triangulating Identity in the Latina/o First-Person Personal Narrative In Piri Thomas’s 1967 autobiography Down These Mean Streets, the protagonist cites a curious exchange he has with Brew, his African American comrade. As a dark-skinned Puerto Rican, Piri’s phenotypic similarities with Brew would indicate a likely affiliation.1 Yet a perplexing conflict arises, setting up a fascinating negotiation of the meaning of Piri’s racial identity: I [Piri] looked at Brew, who was as black as God is supposed to be white. “Man, Brew,” I said, “you sure an ugly spook.” Brew smiled. “Dig this Negro calling out ‘spook,’” he said. I smiled and said, “I’m a Porty Rican.” “Ah only sees another Negro in fron’ of me,” said Brew. This was the “dozens,” a game of insults . . . (121) While the disturbing deployment of racial stereotypes and Piri’s transparent attempt to preserve privilege through their deployment betray 2 · INTRODUCTION the narrator’s uneasiness with black identity, Brew’s hail of Piri as a fellow Negro and Piri’s deployment of “the dozens” emphasize a strategic alignment of himself and his community with African Americans.2 At the same time, Piri rejects these terms in his assertion that he is “Porty Rican,” calling attention to his inability to identify with African Americans in the ways that Brew imagines (namely in terms of the one-drop rule of racial admixture). The corrupt “Porty Rican” subjectivity to which Piri clings is also lacking, as his experience as a colonized subject living in the United States alienates him from a comfortable national identification with the island.3 Consequently, the Puerto Rican identity Piri narrates is both African American and Puerto Rican, but neither. By counterpoising the insufficiencies of both categories, Thomas attempts to navigate a position that might be more accurately termed “Nuyorican.” While this difference may seem academic, Thomas’s narrative strategies attempt to posit a Nuyorican subjectivity that has important political implications for mainland Puerto Ricans. By strategically aligning himself with African Americans, he leverages oppositional traditions that emerge out of slavery, emancipation, the civil rights movement, and black nationalism . As a figure who shares phenotypic and cultural similarities with African Americans, it is logical that Thomas would use these aspects of his racial identity to contest white supremacy. At the same time, because of the history of colonization and racialization specific to Puerto Ricans on the mainland, Piri’s uneasy alliance with African American identity demands reconfiguration within a colonial context. When viewed from these perspectives , Thomas’s navigation between blackness and island-based Puerto Rican nationality constitutes an attempt to locate a Nuyorican subject that accounts for all aspects of his racial, class, and national identities. Thomas’s case is not isolated. In fact, many Latina/o authors of the late twentieth century employ similar narrative strategies in their first-person personal narratives—a continuum of literary forms that includes memoir, autobiography, testimonio, autobiographical fiction, and other forms of life writing. Triangulations examines these narrative strategies to comprehend how Latina/o authors use existing identity categories to navigate the troubled racial waters of the United States. One of this book’s central premises is that Latina/o authors engage in these triangulations to contest liberal individualist notions of identity and their accompanying racial formations. As the title of this book indicates, the navigational technique of triangulation offers a metaphor for understanding how Latina/o authors [44.201.64.238] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 03:29 GMT) INTRODUCTION · 3 negotiate complex identities. Mariners use mathematical triangulation to calculate physical positions and chart courses. Navigators relate an unknown position to the known location of two others by mapping an imaginary triangle. The triangle then yields coordinates for the unknown position based on the distance from and angle of the other two. It is critical that triangulation emphasizes...