Type
Text
Type
Thesis
Advisor
Perez-Melgosa, Adrian | Firbas, Paul. | Roncero-Lopez, Victoriano
Date
2011-12-01
Keywords
Hispanic American studies
Department
Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature.
Language
es
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77705
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the Puerto Rican experience has been marked by a situation of both Diaspora and cultural imperialism. In this contexts Puerto Rican writers and intellectuals have provided alternative visions of national and personal identity that could account for the existence of this deterritorialized nation. The dominant discourse regarding " Puerto Rican-ness" nurtured in the communities of origin, outside the mainland, a sense of nationhood defined by territorial and linguistic identity markers. The need for a new identity relies on the perceptible discomfort of territorializing a nation that, throughout massive migration, has established a circular Puerto Rican nation. Through bibliographic research carried out in libraries in New York and Puerto Rico, I have observed how Puerto Rican literature surpasses territorial borders. The multiple representations of Puerto Rican identity and the symbolic border that they establish bring new insight with respect to the way the Puerto Rican nation, its nationalism, and identity are under constant redefinition and reinterpretation. Although the Puerto Rican Diaspora takes place mainly within the geopolitical borders of the United States, this massive displacement plays a key role in the complexity of establishing a link between Puerto Rican who live in the Island of Puerto Rico and those whose " Puerto Rican-ness" is based on emotional and symbolic ties: between experiences of being at the center, and those of being at the margins. To be unbounded by a fixed location, to be both bicultural and bilingual, is not evidence of how the influences from the United States devour the Puerto Rican culture. The cultural nationalism expressed by the Puerto Rican communities inside the Unites States objectifies how the interconnection between the experiences of migration and exile conform to a new discourse regarding the concept of " nation" . Within this discourse, memory and imagination replace the need for a specific physical territory, thus allowing a wider group of people to construct their own nation. Therefore, to define " Puerto Rican-ness" is complex, not only because it defies the canonic definition of " nation" but, because " to be" Puerto Rican is a concept akin that of the living organism, one that incessantly breathes new life and is constantly morphing. | 79 pages
Recommended Citation
Rivera-Diaz, Coral, "" Diáspora, nacionalidad e imaginación: relatos de la construcción de identidad puertorriqueña" | " Diáspora, nacionalidad e imaginación: relatos de la construcción de identidad puertorriqueña"" (2011). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 3496.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/3496