Killing Spanish Literary Essays on Ambivalent U.S. Latino/a Identity

Killing Spanishsuggests that the doubles, madwomen and other raging characters that populate the pages of contemporary U.S. Latino/a literature allegorize ambivalence about both present American identity and past Caribbean and Latin American origins. The family novels Sandiacute;n explores -- ranging from work by the Cuban American Cristina Garciacute;a to the island Puerto Rican Rosario Ferreacute; -- uncover the split between Americanized protagonists and their families, a split usually resolved through the killing of a character representing origins. Race and class differences, and poverty, cause protagonists in work by the Nuyoricans Piri Thomas, the Dominican American Junot Diacute;az, and others, to embrace the street as the new Latino home. If the family novels exact the death of "Spanish" in the person of a double character, the urban fiction and poetry project the "mean" street, churning with the productive and destructive energies of ambivalence, as the landscape of the fragmented U.S. Latino/a psyche.

Lyn Di Iorio Sandfn is an Assistant Professor of English at the City College of the City University of New York where she teaches courses on Caribbean and U.S. Latino/a Literatures and fiction writing.