230631 What's is in a Label?: U.S. Latin@ Literatures (S) (SoSe 2008)

In this course we will read works by, among others, Mexican American, Cuban American, Chicano, Puerto Rican mainlander, and Dominican American writers. Based on the assumptions that they belong to "one big Latino family" and share a unified history, these writers, and the ethnic groups they belong to, have been linked together under the umbrella terms "Latinos/as" or "Hispanics" in the U.S.A. The course will start with a short introduction to U.S.A.-Latin American historical interaction and its impact on Latin American migration to the U.S.A. In order to start exploring the way "Latinos/as" and "Hispanics" engage in conceptions of themselves, it will continue with a brief study of the concepts of "race" and "racism" in Latin America; and engage with the terms "Latin@" and "Hispanic" within the U.S.A. context. Through our theoretical and literary readings, by the end of course, we will have a better sense of the usefulness and the conceptual limitations of the "Latinos/as" and "Hispanics" terms that by now have acquired real power in U.S.A. public discourse.