Narratives of displacement: The evolution of the Caribbean-American transnational narrative.

摘要

This study compares the texts of three generations of Caribbean-American writers and their conceptualizations of the transnation and transnational identity. It explores how these writers imagine home as an alternative to the notion of the stable and rooted nation. In addition, it builds upon existing notions of diasporic return in order to outline its significance as an evolving theme in transnational literature. This study also interrogates alternatives to assimilation for characters who are positioned on the borders of mainstream American culture. "Narratives of Displacement" concentrates on three generations of American writers who are originally from the Spanish, French, and English speaking Caribbean. These narratives can be loosely categorized by the historical periods that they represent. The first grouping is set during the 1930s-1950s and includes Paule Marshall's Brown Girl, Brownstones and Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets. The second grouping, Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, is set during the 1960s-1980s. The third grouping is set in the 1980s to the present and includes Edwidge Danticat's Breath, Eyes, Memory, Junot Diaz's Drown, Loida Maritza Perez's Geographies of Home, Abraham Rodriguez's Spidertown, and Angie Cruz's Soledad. I use postcolonial, diaspora, and globalization theory to examine how the relationship between the Caribbean and the United States influences the production of Caribbean-American narratives.