When trying to return home : stories

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI--COLUMBIA AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] This dissertation includes the critical introduction "My Mother is My Homeland: Subversive Representations of the Black Puerto Rican Matriarch" and a collection of short stories, WHEN TRYING TO RETURN HOME. In the critical introduction, I explore how Mayra Santos-Febres and Amina Gautier create subversive representations of black Puerto Rican women in their texts, and how both writers expand representations of the black matriarch. I also argue that both writers evoke problematic black motherhood tropes to dismantle them. Both writers show how these complex "fictional mothers" can serve as "fictive kin" to black women searching for radical cites of home. The short story collection, with varying degrees of engagement, addresses issues of race, class and gender, the invisibility of marginalized women, and uneven distribution of resources for people of color. The stories feature Black American and Black Latinx characters who wrestle with their ties to the time period, state, island or intracultural expectations, and search for "homes" in many kinds of idealized places.