Negotiating A Hemispheric Latinidad

Negotiating a Hemispheric Latinidad, explores how contemporary Latin American cultural products (from the beginning of the 21st century and forward), think about, conceive of, and represent the Latinx experience in the U.S. This study argues that contemporary Latin American cultural products addressing the Latinx experience in the U.S. articulate latinidad as a never-ending border-crossing process, whose aim is to forge cultural proximity with Latinx communities throughout the Americas, emphasizing the believed Hispanic heritage while rejecting U.S. hemispherical hegemony. I also contend that the forging of latinidades questions the notion of a Hispanic (i.e., European-centered), "cosmic race" (i.e., a whitening processes of racial understandings) inherent in the Latin American latinidad, calling attention to the erasures embedded in this pan-ethnic grouping. Moreover, Negotiating a Hemispheric Latinidad examines how, through the conceptualization of latinidad and the pondering of who is Latinx in a Latin American context, some cultural products opt to claim an americanidad to emphasize hemispheric authenticity and belonging. Conversing with---and often challenging---the disciplines of American studies, Latino studies and Latin American studies, my dissertation observes that latinidad is a process that articulates and mobilizes Latinx American difference, creating a "Latino" identity which, as such, is inherently uneven and unequal.