Rituals of Resistance in Contemporary Latino Fiction: Queering Masculinity, Matrimony, and Motherhood in the Works of Junot Díaz and Nicholasa Mohr

Authors

Ana Maria Santiago, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Advisory Committee Chair

Sue J Kim

Advisory Committee Members

Carlos L Orihuela

Daniel J Siegel

Document Type

Thesis

Date of Award

2011

Degree Name by School

Master of Arts (MA) College of Arts and Sciences

Abstract

This thesis examines the processes of gendering and sexing as seen in the short fiction of contemporary Latino authors Junot Díaz and Nicholasa Mohr, and focuses especially on how the ideological constructions of gender and sexuality, particularly those of machismo, maternity, and marriage, interact with notions of nationality, ethnicity, race, and class. The stories in Díaz's Drown and Mohr's Rituals of Survival and In Nueva York illuminate the mechanics of these ongoing, complex ideological processes, revealing the crucial role gendering and sexing play in forming and regulating a working-class, U.S. Latino body. The characters of these stories negotiate stark dichotomies and rigid gender roles by subverting some and embracing others, thus revealing that there are multiple masculinities and femininities.

Recommended Citation

Santiago, Ana Maria, "Rituals of Resistance in Contemporary Latino Fiction: Queering Masculinity, Matrimony, and Motherhood in the Works of Junot Díaz and Nicholasa Mohr" (2011). All ETDs from UAB. 2898.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/2898