LatinoAm 213-003: Final Exam Review

Sanctuary

-a place of refuge or safety. - Religous sanctuary was a way Americans sheltered asylum seekers from central america coming in the 1980s due to war and violence in their home countries. Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant people opened their doors for Hispanic asylum seekers giving food, jobs, housing and protection from law enforcement.

Candomble

African religious ideas and practices in Brazil, particularly among the Yoruba people.

Impact of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)

After the U.S. defeat of Mexico, the treaty stipulated that the United States would acquire a substantial portion of Mexico's land In the treaty, the United States agreed to treat those Mexicans currently residing in the colonized territory as U.S. citizens. At the time, however, citizenship in the United States was afforded only to whites; hence, the treaty granted Mexican Americans the legal rights of whiteness. But the promises of the treaty were not honored, and Mexican Americans were typically regarded as non-white; they lost their land and livelihood; and a lengthy history of discrimination in education, housing, employment, and political participation ensued

Santeria/Lucumi/Regla de Ocha

An Afro-American religion of Caribbean origin that developed in the Spanish Empire among West African descendants. Santería is a Spanish word that means the "worship of saints". Santería is influenced by and syncretized with Roman Catholicism. Its sacred language is the Lucumí language, a variety of Yoruba.

Maylei Blackwell

-keyword Indigeneity - She is an interdisciplinary scholar activist, oral historian, and author - Books: ¡Chicana Power! Contested Histories of Feminism in the Chicano Movement - She is an Associate Professor in the César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and Women's Studies Department at UCLA, and affiliated faculty in the American Indian Studies and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies - She identifies as two-spirit (LGBTQ) and is of Cherokee and Thai heritage

Aztlan

"The place of the white heron" , the supposed home of the Aztecs. Unknown where or if it is real. Most scholars assume that they made up this history to suit their purposes.

Praxis (def)

-practice, as distinguished from theory. -accepted practice or custom

Angela Valenzuela

-professor in both the Educational Policy and Planning Program within the Department of Educational Administration at the University of Texas at Austin - alenzuela also directs the National Latino Education Research and Policy Project (NLERAP) that aims to create a teacher education pathways for Latino/a youth, nationally - Chicana - Books: Subtractive Schooling - Wrote Education keyword

Education (keyword)

- by Angela Valenzuela Main points: - Generally has a positive impact on individuals - System in US focuses on what education acomplishes (outcomes) rather than what is actually taught in schools (content) or by the way it is delivered (process) - Growing demand for ethnic studies by latino students - shift from product to content and process shows Latinos not just an object of study but how to impact communities and self identify - Low levels of education high drop out rates for latinos mimic social and political disadvantages latinos have in US - Anglo based cultural superiority in what is being taught and who is teaching it, high stakes testing all against latinos in the us - Latinos silenced on main stream models of achievment by being faces with discrimination and not being taught our own history in schools - Education in US society is based on individual merit - Meritocracy: You will suceed based on your own efforts to do well. This leaves out the fact that Latinos and other minorities in the US are not on the same playing feild as white Americans - Getting into the upper class elite society is greatly based on the people already there. They decide who gets to come up and they make it increasingly harder for Latinos and other minority groups - Subjective schooling: The idea if Latinos shed their cultural ways to be more Anglo that they will suceed in education more based on the likeness of their teachers and peers - Latino youth face a problem with rebelling from learning main stream curriculum because it isnt their history. A form of resistance is to not learn and be difficult. This results in their own educations being worsened. Against Latino youth in education: - lack of bilingual education - underrepresentation of Latino teachers - Lack of study on Latinos in history books etc - institutionalized discrimination

Culture (keyword)

- by Arlene Davila Main points: - Power and hierarchies come to forefront when discussing culture - Latinos are a panethnic identity with many different cultures not one single "Latino culture" - Latinos challenge the notion of culture because many cultures within Latino culture - Latino culture hyper visible in Anglo dominated US society - Tension between culture and citizenship: Latino culture seen as challenge Anglo dominated US culture and seen as a threat. If Latinos dont assimilate seen as the other/bad - Example in US reduce Latino cutlure to one thing and not complex/diverse. Latino culture has a "Latin look" which is often white. Erase indiginous and black culture etc - Latino culture can become easily appropriated by US industries to sell false representation of Latino people and culture for capatilist purposes

fukú

- generally a curse or a doom of some kind; speciically the Curse and the Doom of the New World. Also called the fukú of the Admiral because the Admiral was both its midwife and one of its great European vicims; despite 'discovering' the New World the Admiral died miserable and syphiliic, hearing (dique) divine voices. - "No mater what its name or provenance, it is believed that the arrival of Europeans on Hispaniola unleashed the fukú on the world, and we've all been in the shit ever since."

Ben V. Olguín

- keyword "Raza" - Presidential Chair in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara - Humanities - Has served on the faculty in the English departments at Cornell University and the University of Texas at San Antonio and Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas at Austin - Books: La Pinta: Chicana/o Prisoner Literature, Culture, and Politics

María Lugones

- keyword Decolonial - Argentine feminist philosopher, social critic, and Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Philosophy, and Women's Studies at Binghamton University in New York - She developed the idea of coloniality of gender, a gender binary or heterosexual system in which there are different hierarchies of power and homosexuality or transgender identities are not recognized - Books: Pilgrimages/Peregrinajes: Theorizing Coalition Against Multiple Oppressions (2003),

Alicia Arrizón

- keyword Mestizaje - professor and chair of the Department of Women's Studies at the University of California, Riverside - A native of the Arizona border town of San Luis, she immigrated with her parents to the United States in the 1970s - Books: Latina performence (1999), Queering Mestizaje (2006)

Raza (keyword)

- keyword by Ben V. Olguín - Confusion over the word/what it means - Castas - Limpieza de Sangre( cleansing the blood) lightening or whitening ones offspring by marrige with a lighter skinned person to make the race better - Mejorando la Raza (improving the race) same as Limpieza de Sangre - "Passing" the idea that a person who is not white can pass because very light skinned was looked down upon. - La Raza= the race, early interpretations blackness not seen as good. Whiter you are the better. - Raza has limited value because does not show power relations, identity, and often seen as relating to a male centered world/society - William Shakespear "Tempest" has to do with early race relations when sailors ship crashed on Carribean island - Chicano scholar Jose David Saldivar "School of Caliban" wanted a school for multicultural peoples (men) feminist scholars of color pushed back and envisioned spaces for women of color - Raza Cosmica: Cosmic Race by Jose Vasconcelos was the idea that Mexicans would lead the way in the new race/Mexicans were the superior race. Did not like black people. - "La Raza de Bronze" The Bronze Race poems by Chicano author Alurista based on Jose Vasconselos Raza Cosmica - "New Mestiza" by Gloria Anzaldua tries to reclaim the word "Raza" to make it all encompass all peoples. Make the word mean "My people" Latinos - Raza also fails to show class conflicts within race. Example all Mexicans seen as poor, not the reality. - Olguín Raza has failed to live up to a positive useful modern term and its history with segregating races and classifying by white supremacy can not be easily erased. Besides Anzaldua's memoir Raza is not a useful world. Growing Muslim Latino Population showing Raza leaves out contemporary religious groups of people growing in Latino community

Transculturation

- term coined by Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz in 1947 to describe the phenomenon of merging and converging cultures - to encompasses more than transition from one culture to another; it does not consist merely of acquiring another culture (acculturation) or of losing or uprooting a previous culture (deculturation). Rather, it merges these concepts and additionally carries the idea of the consequent creation of new cultural phenomena.

The Coloniality of Gender

- term coined by María Lugones - She developed the idea of coloniality of gender, a gender binary or heterosexual system in which there are different hierarchies of power and homosexuality or transgender identities are not recognized

Mariachi

A Mexican style of music played by ensembles of violins, guitars, and two or more trumpets.

Mosque

A Muslim place of worship

Arts at Michigan

A U of M organization that increases student access to the arts

Yoruba

A West African people who formed several kingdoms in what is now Benin and Southern Nigeria.

Galactus

A fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Formerly a mortal man, Galactus is a cosmic entity who originally consumed planets to sustain his life force, and serves a functional role in the upkeep of the primary Marvel continuity. Galactus was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in the comic book Fantastic Four.

The Fantastic Four

A fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The group debuted in The Fantastic Four

Joaquín Balaguer

- was the President of the Dominican Republic who served three non-consecutive terms for that office from 1960 to 1962 - His enigmatic, secretive personality inherited from the Trujillo era, as well as his desire to perpetuate himself in power through dubious elections and state terrorism, earned him the nickname of caudillo. His regime of terror damaged 11,000 victims who were either tortured or forcibly disappeared and killed

Prof. Teresa Satterfield

-Associate Professor of Spanish at U-M. -research interests include child bilingualism, first language acquisition, language contact phenomena in the context of U.S. (Afro-)Latino identity and culture. - Cuban and Panamanian descent. - Book: Bilingual Selection of Syntactic Knowledge - Wrote: The Emergence of US Afro-Spanish and the Influence of Social Media: How 'Slanguage' Evolves to Standard in the 21st Century"

Derek Walcott

-Born on the island of Saint Lucia, a former Briish colony in the West Indies -poet and playwright Derek Walcot was trained as a painter but turned to wriing as a young man. - In 1992, Walcot won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Nobel commitee described his work as "a poeic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a mulicultural commitment." - Wrote A Far Cry from Africa

The Emergence of US Afro-Spanish and the Influence of Social Media: How 'Slanguage' Evolves to Standard in the 21st Century"

-By Prof. Teresa Satterfield Abstract: The current paper examines the social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as part of a multi-dimensional study on an emergent contact variety Caribbean Spanish infused with African-American English, US Afro-Spanish (USAS). Through the analysis of written USAS-specific linguistic markers, this current study establishes that the variety is not only linguistically distinct from each source dialect, but also uniquely distinguishes USAS speakers socioculturally, bespeaking a rapidly evolving "urban Latino" identity in the US. Main points: - the emergence of a 'new' Spanish forming in the United States. We call this variety 'US Afro-Spanish (USAS),' due to patterns attested in the Spanish of young in-group Latinos on the East Coast, in which underlying phonological and morphosyntactic features of spoken US African American English (AAE) are systematically melded with monolingual Caribbean Spanish - Spanglish and USAS not the same - ongoing contact between African American (monolingual English-speakers) and Latino (Caribbean Spanish-speakers) youth drives the creation and evolution of USAS - we conclude that USAS is emblematic of 21st century speech behaviors produced by proficient and linguistically-savvy young Spanish-English bilinguals.

Islam

A religion based on the teachings of the prophet Mohammed which stresses belief in one god (Allah), Paradise and Hell, and a body of law written in the Quran. Followers are called Muslims.

Lorraine M. Gutiérrez

-Director, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program, and Professor of Social Work, School of Social Work, Arthur F Thurnau Professor, Professor of Psychology, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. - PhD in Social Work and Psychology from U-M - Her teaching and scholarship focuses on multicultural praxis in communities, organizations and higher education. - Books: Handbook of Social Work 2017, and Empowering Women of Color 1999, Youth Participation and Community Change 2006, Education for Multicultural Social Work Practice 2004

Mestiza Consciousness

-Gloria Anzaldua's term for embracing the contradictions and ambiguity of racial and cultural admixture; a celebration of the hybridity - "A massive uprooting of dualistic thinking in the individual and collective consciousness..."

Counternarrative

Def: A narrative that is from the point of marginalized people. Example with Oscar Wao •Parallels with Juan Gónzalez's book Harvest of Empire. •The novel (and author) make the claim that Dominican history is American history.

Jennifer Maytorena Taylor

Directed documentary New Muslim Cool (film)

Ethnicity

Identity with a group of people that share distinct physical and mental traits as a product of common heredity and cultural traditions.

Juan Gabriel

Influential Mexican singer and songwriter, his song "Cancion 187" exemplifies the mainstream Mexican view of immigration

"Pa'lante"

Song is from Hurrah for the Riff Raff's 2017 album The Navigator, which was released on March 10. "Pa'lante"= forward

Orisha

The hundreds of various Yoruba deities who are the main objects of ritual attention

Virgin of Guatalupe

Our Lady of Guadalupe, also known as the Virgin of Guadalupe, is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary associated with a venerated image enshrined within the Minor Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City sign of family, faith, strong women in US by Mexican catholics. Chicana artists paint and make art with virgin de guatalupe center figure

Indigineity (def)

Quality of being indiginous, member of an indiginous group. The first native people to a land.

Spirituality definition

a belief in someone or something that transcends the boundaries of self

Novel

a long narraive, normally in prose, which describes icional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequenial story. A long writen story usually about imaginary characters and events; an invented prose narraive that is usually long and complex and deals especially with human experience through a usually connected sequence of events.

Historical Novel

a novel having as its setting a period of history and usually introducing some historical personages and events.

Mestizo

a person of mixed blood or ancestry

epigraph

a quotaion set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme

Microagressions

everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership

Aida Cuevas

famous Mexican singer and actress who has created one of the most important careers in the traditional Mexican and Latin American music. Grammy and Latin Grammy winner. In her 40s now.

Macondo (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao)

fictional town described in Gabriel García Márquez's 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad), which is characterized by magical realism.

Boricua Halal

puerto rican islamic meat

Fiction

writen stories about people and events that are not real : literature that tells stories which are imagined by the writer.

History of the Dominican Republic in relation to Oscar Wao (short)

•1822-1844: Haiian occupaion of Santo Domingo. •1861: Santana announced the annexaion of the Dominican Republic by Spain. •1865: Queen of Spain approved a decree repealing the annexaion of Santo Domingo. •1916-1924: Occupaion by the United States. •1930-1961: Regime of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Oct. 1937: Trujillo ordered the massacre of Haiians living in the Dominican Republic. 1960: Murder of the three Mirabal sisters (Minerva, Patria, and María Teresa, referred to as the "buterlies") under orders of Trujillo. •1961: Trujillo assassinated .•1962: Juan Bosch elected president in democraic elecions.

Classification of "The Breif Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

•An American novel.•A Latinx novel.•A Caribbean novel.•An Afro-diasporic novel.•A Dominican-American novel.•A Latin American novel.•A historical novel.•A novela del dictador or dictator novel.•An immigrant novel.•A bildungsroman (coming of age novel) of sorts.•A novel in dialogue with science fiction, fantasy, gaming, comics, & other genres of popular culture.•An autobiographical novel.•A romance novel.

Syle: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

•Distinctive way it is written. •Language use: Mix of African American/Latinx and Standard American English, Dominican Spanish, code switching (Spanglish?). An example: fukú/zafa .•Constant references to popular culture, comic books, fantasy games, Dominican history and popular beliefs, student life (particularly in a Catholic high school and at Rutgers but also in Dominican schools). -Use of footnotes: unusual in a novel, also written in particular style. Offer contextual/historical information but in a very particular way.

Characters: "The Breif Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (PI)

•Jack Pujols: White boy Beli has sex with who says he loves her but doesnt really at all. -Abelard: Abelard doesn't resist until Trujillo takes a liking to his daughter. Abelard has a mistress, is very wealthy, and, for a long while, goes along with Trujillo's wishes. Abelard loses his marbles in Nigüa Prison after being tortured. The guards put a wet rope on Abelard's head and then sit him out in the sun. As the rope dries, it tightens around his skull. •Ybón Pimentel: Oscar falls in love with her late in the novel, during a visit to Santo Domingo. She is dating the Capitain (Truijjo) she is a prostitute in her late 30s. She lets the Capitan kill oscar. Oscar is madly in love with her sees no wrong. •Gorilla Grodd and Solomon Grundyz; These two dunces take orders from Ybón's capitán. There's no way to tell them apart. They appear only twice in the novel, and it's not to do charity work. They administer Oscar's first beatdown, and then they murder Oscar. They make the violence seem almost comedic with their comments.

Ana Patricia Rodríguez

- Keyword Literature -Salvadoran-American. •Associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese and U.S. Latina/o Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. •Her books include Dividing the Isthmus: Central American Transnational Histories, Literatures, and Cultures (University of Texas Press, 2009).

Hill Auditorium

Hill Auditorium is the largest performance venue on the University of Michigan campus, in Ann Arbor, Michigan

María Elena Cepeda

- Keyword Music - Professor of Latina/o Studies at Williams College in MA. - Colombian-American. - books include Musical ImagiNation : U.S.-Colombian Identity and the Latin Music Boom (2010).

José Vasconcelos

- (1882-1959) - Wrote La Raza Cosmica

Gloria Anzaldúa

- 1942-2004 - chicana dyke-feminist, tejana patlache poet, writer, and cultural theorist - Author of Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987), where she privileges "mestiza consciousness"

Miribral Sisters

- 1960: Murder of the three Mirabal sisters (Minerva, Patria, and María Teresa, referred to as the "buterlies") under orders of Trujillo. •Born in the Dominican Republic, fervently opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Leónidas Trujillo. •Survived by their sister Bélgica Adela "Dedé" Mirabal-Reyes. •Their story was icionalized by Julia Álvarez in In the Time of the Buterlies (1994), ilm (2001).

Dictator novel

- A genre in Latin American literature that challenges the role of the dictator in Latin American society - Example: Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina, nicknamed El Jefe, was a Dominican politician, soldier and dictator, who ruled the Dominican Republicfrom February 1930 until his assassination in May 1961. and President Joaquín Balaguer, who was Trujillo's assistant, maintained many authoritarian and violent practices under democracy after Trujillo's death. Balaguer ruled from 1966 to 1978

Define: "The Breif Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao"

- A novel written by Junot Diaz - Wondrous= to be marveled at - Oscar Wao= misshearing of Oscar Wilde (Irish poet and playwright. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Imprisoned due to being gay and later die in prison after writing many things)

Anne M Martinez

- Assistant Professor (tenured), American Studies in Politicial Culture and Theory, University of Groningen, The Netherlands. - She is a scholar of religion, primarily Catholicism. - Books: Catholic Borderlands: Mapping Catholicism onto American Empire, 1905-1935 - Wrote keyword religion

Alberto Baltazar Urista Heredia (Alurista)

- August 8, 1947 - Chicano poet and activist - born in Mexico City - He went to the United States when he was thirteen, settling with his family in the border city of San Diego, California - In 1969, he attended the First National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference - Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, the political manifesto of the Chicano Movement

Silvio Torres-Saillant

- Wrote "Race" keywords with Nancy Kang - Professor in the English Department - Formerly headed the Latino-Latin American Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at Syracuse University - Founded the CUNY Dominican Studies Institute, a prestigious interdisciplinary research unit located in the City College of New York - wrote: "The Domican Americans" and " Intelectual History of the Caribbean"

Blanqueamiento

- Blanqueamiento, branqueamento, or whitening, is a social, political, and economic practice used in many post-colonial countries to "improve the race" (mejorar la raza) towards a supposed ideal of whiteness - The term blanqueamiento is rooted in Latin America and is used more or less synonymous with racial whitening. However, blanqueamiento can be considered in both the symbolic and biological sense - Symbolically, blanqueamiento represents an ideology that emerged from legacies of European colonialism, described by Anibal Quijano's theory of coloniality of power, which caters to white dominance in social hierarchies. Biologically, blanqueamiento is the process of whitening by marrying a lighter-skinned individual to produce lighter-skinned offspring

literature (keyword)

- By Ana Patricia Rodríguez -Believes: Literature is a tool of empowerment for Latinos. It can be liberation, empowerment, representation and story telling as a space of identity and community formation. Latino literary practice is a site for discursive struggle. Must be read as a practice addressing intersextionalities where opposite opinions are crossed and come together to try and make sense of our identities. Latino literature is an ever changing field. Examples "Pérez's novel points to literature as a tool of empowerment and liberation, representation and storytelling as a space of identity and community formation, and Latina/o literary critical practice as a site of discursive struggle (Belsey 1990)." (122) "Latina/o literature offers a discursive space through which to articulate, represent, and negotiate issues of power, language, orality, ethnicity, community, migration, diaspora, struggle, social justice, home/land, and belonging, to name only a few." (122-23) "Latina literature is 'a very complex phenomenon,' representing the 'multifarious practices, identities, and experiences of Latinos[/as] in the U.S.' (Aldama 2013, xii, xvi)." (123) •"How to tell their many varied stories and histories, in different languages and through diverse forms, is the subject and practice of Latina/o literature." (123)

Religion (keyword)

- By Anne M Martinez Main Points: -Historical stigmitation of indiginous and african religons in the americas - Catholasism can be seen as a tool of oppression against Latino communities by colonial rule - Latinos use religon to resist oppresson and can see it as not central to life due to colonial force of catholicism on hispanic people in latin america - 55% Latinos catholic with infuson of african and indiginous religons as well - Black legend: Spanish very cruel to indiginous peoples through catholic cruelty - White legend: spanish people try to paint spainish colonizers as kind and helpful to indiginous people through religon - Early hispanic people see catholicism as the way of the spanish evil man - As latino Mexicans settle in US catholic faith become center of life to deal with racial and social oppression - Catholic churches often support repressive regimes and dictators in latin america

Exile (keyword)

- By Jose Quiroga Main points: -Exile defines movement and life of individual - Exile is an unnatural state that seperates humans from all other sentiment and creatures and is one of the defining factors of modern thought - Native Americans experienced exile when colonists pushed them out of their lands - African american slaves experience exile through forced from their native country to america for slave work - Criollos feel like Euopean exiles because Indian and Anglo descent born in America not connection to England so in a sense very different from Anglo descent however soon seen as having power and dominating/taking over native lands - Exile seen as something nessesary for a powerful well functioning government - People exiled from countries during political uprisings to defuse clashing in political thought esp with dicatatorships in power ex Cuba - Many Latin American heros of was are exiles from Europe came to new world to start over and claim lands - exile cuases major displacements in populations - Exile to community is seen as someone without a place

Music (keyword)

- By María Elena Cepeda - Music self expression fo US Latinos and a way to be visible in popular music scene - 19302-40s Rumba and Mambo popular - Market driven media phenomenon with Latin/Latino music made popular - US Latino music catagorized under "world, foreign, ethnic" music genres - Latino music not only under Latino catagory but much crossover and Latino influence in many other genres and types of music - Latinas usually solo vocalist or backup singer or dancer - Usually light skin anglo looking latinas become famous and lack of Latinas representing themselves in music industry usually white people manage them and decide their public image - Transculturation in Latino music especially between African Americans and Latinos - Lesser studied if how Latino identity ties into making of music ie Queer community

Cuba's Refugees: Manifold Migration

- By Prof. Silvia Pedraza Main Points: - 30 years Cuban migration to US many different stories of immigration - Each wave of migration brings a different socisl composition - Each wave undergoes a different experience assimilating into American society - Manifold=many and various.

The Emergence of US Afro-Spanish and the Influence of Social Media: How "Slanguage" Evolves to Standard in the 21st Century

- By Schuen and Satterfield Abstract: Research suggests that a causal relationship exists between current US demographic shifts, cultural convergence and linguistic diversity (Grewal 2009). However, the bulk of these studies does not extend to marginalized US populations such as low income Latino/Hispanic immigrant communities. Nor do studies account for the linguistic leveling across dialects and languages in part generated by the popularity of social media in the 21st century. The current paper examines the social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as part of a multi-dimensional study on an emergent contact variety Caribbean Spanish infused with African-American English, US Afro-Spanish (USAS). Through the analysis of written USAS-specific linguistic markers, thi s current study establishes that the variety is not only linguisticallydistinct from each source dialect, but also uniquely distinguishes USAS speakers socioculturally, bespeaking a rapidly evolving "urban Latino" identity i n the US. Closing: younger generations of Latinos are creating new linguistic indices to mark their unique identities. These indices not only signal the avoidance of "whiteness" in both the use of Spanish and English for young Latinos in the urban setting, but they also indicate a strong desire to maintain their Spanish-speaking heritage. Social media provides an optimal setting for the incubation of these indices. Given these conditions, we postulate that USAS will continue to evolve and diffuse over time from base communities such as Co-op City.

Celia Zentella

- Wrote Spanglish Essay - She is one of the foremost researchers in what she has named "anthro-political linguistics". - She is a central figure in the study of U.S. Latin@ varieties of Spanish and English, Spanglish, and language socialization in Latin@ families. - Professor Emerita, UCSD and CUNY. - She is Mexi-Rican, the daughter of a Puerto Rican mother and a Mexican father. She was raised in the South Bronx. - Books: Growing Up Bilingual

Race (keyword)

- By Silvio Torres-Saillant and Nancy Kang - They structure essay with examples of how racism is a building block of our society in the US starting from colonialization in the new world by Euopean (white) powers - Spanish and English colonizers justify their brutality of the indiginous people based on race and religion (white superiority) - They give examples of how not only can white people be racist and prejudice but people of color also hold on to white supremist values. For example in the Dominican Republic the government wanted to take away citizenship from Haitian DR citizens becauce of their blackness - Main argument is to recognize the history of racism in our society so that we can move forward - Racism comes from fear of the other creating dehumanization of "the other" (minorities and people of color in US) - US census acknowledges different ethnicities of Latinos under the catagory haspanic or Latino but does not do so for Asian Americans who can only check the box Asian (not specific)

Stan Lee

- Creator of Galactus charachter and Fantastic Four

Jose Quiroga

- Cuban-American scholar born in Havana and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico. - Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Emory University. - Books: Tropics of Desire: Interventions from Queer Latino America (2000) and Cuban Palimpsests (2005) - Keyword Exile

Julia Alvarez

- Dominican author in US - How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991), In the Time of the Buterlies (1994)

Spanglish

- Essay by Celia Zentella Main Points: - Spanglish is a combination of English and Spanish many outsiders see it as for the poor language and having no set of rules therefor slang or informal - however Spanglish usually follows the rules of english and spanish grammer making it even harder to speak -

"Popular Culture"

- Essay by Curtis Marez Main points: - His def: everyday material relations in opposition to dominant Anglo culture. Bottom up cultural productions ie from the streets and appropriated top down forms of culture - culture brings hierarchies of power - Latino culture engrained in US society and appropriated - zoot suite riots (mexican youth popular culture) - 1990s rise of popular culture studies

Latinxs, Race, and the U.S. Census

- For example, in sociologist Clara E. Rodriguez's (2000) interviews with Latinas/os, primarily Puerto Ricans and Ecuadorians in New York, she found her respondents identified as racially 'other' largely due to their perception of race as a cultural or political identity. She argues that this differs from the dominant narrative of race in the United States, which focuses primarily on notions of biology and skin color.

Castas

- Higherarchy/ status between Europeans at the top; and Amerindians and blacks at the bottom - Pictures drawn of castas to state exctly what people are and where they fall in social hierarchy ex Black and Spanish= Mulatto - 16 general codifications of Castas - Ex criollos, mestizos, pardos, mulato, lobo etc

Hurrah for the Riff Raff

- Indie rock band from New Orleans, Louisiana formed by Alynda Segarra, a Nuyorican singer from the Bronx. - Segarra draws inspiration from cult favorite Rodriguez, a Mexican-American who translated working-class stories from Detroit into powerful rock ballads, and the Ghetto Brothers, an underground band from the 1970s South Bronx who stitched Puerto Rican nationalist messages into a rough-hewn fabric of Santana and Sly and the Family Stone Afro-Caribbean funk. She reached back to her cultural ancestors in the form of the radical political group the Young Lords and the salsa singer Héctor Lavoe. - Riffraff= disreputable people

Tanya Katerí Hernández

- Keyword Afro Latinos/as - Professor of Law at the Fordham University School of Law in New York City. - She teaches Anti-Discrimination Law, Comparative Employment Discrimination, Critical Race Theory, The Science of Implicit Bias and the Law: - Puerto Rican descent - Book: Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination

John Nieto-Phillips

- Keyword Language - Associate Professor of History and Latina/o Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. - nuevomexicano (from New Mexico) - book: n The Language of Blood: The Making of Spanish-American Identity in New Mexico, 1880s-1930s

Indiginity (keyword)

- Keyword by Maylei Blackwell - Def: Native inhabitants of the land - Indiginous people have to negotiate an array of power relations in a struggle that deligitimizes their forms of knowledge and ways of being - Indiginious identidy as tribal nations of pueblos - Have been oppressed by colonial powers since first contact and struggle to maintain terrotorial integrity - Embeded into indiginous culture is relationship to the land and ancestors. So even when displaced by colonial governments maintain their beliefs - Many indiginous people have been fprcibly removed for purposes of colonial settlement - Many indiginous people and tribes fausaly divided by colonial borders - Indiginous people highly regulated and monitored by colonial governments - Colonial governments homogenize indiginous groups calling them all the same or failing to recognize difference among groups - Colonial governments and colonial society equalize indiginous people with other racial minorities, thus taking away their specific claims of self determination and claims as origonal habitants of regions and failing to see how they are oppressed differently. - Reclamation of Indigeneity: (abandoned white claims) Many Latinas/os would later abandon these claims to whiteness in favor of embracing pride in their Indigenous or mestizo roots - 1960s and 1970s, calls for 'brown power' and pride in racial difference became the central platform for racial justice organizing

Afro-Latinas/os (Keyword)

- Keyword by Tanya Katerí Hernández Main Points: - Def: Latinos of African Ancestry - More likely to speak English at home and be US born - Mestizaje underlying connotations of white supremacy - Cosmic Race: racial mixing to get whiter, ideas black race can be redeemed by getting rid of blackness through racial mixing - Mestiza consciousness: Gloria Anzaldua says through empowring mestiza people can link cultures and groups together through the very people who experience these racial and ethnic intersectionalities - Idea of mestizaje leave no room for the difference in appearance of Afro Latinos who physically appear of more African Ancestory ie darker, hair texture. These people experience different ways of being then other mixed people - Afro Latinos often mistaken for only black and face discrimination by other Latinos - socio economic status of Afro Latinos more akin to African Americans in Us also tend to live in higher populated black areas

Decolonial (keyword)

- Keyword essay by Maria Lugones - Decolonial thinking rejects mainstream ideals of colonial powers and works to reclaim histories of the oppressed people - Decolonial marks or forms sites and methods of resistance to the colonization that dehumanized most of the people in the new world - Example: Chicana feminist Emma Perez believes Chicanas within Aztlan moving to a new place rejecting the divison of people by the US Mexico border - Perez also believes decolonial thinking can be a tool for recovering chicana feminist voices - Perez believes decolonalism can be a way to study the lost history of women under the coloniam powers a way to re learn our history - Chela Sandoval: decolonial theory as a way of self determination of colonized and marginolized people. A way to reject mainstream western history and re claim our own - "decolonial conciousness" building coalition between oppressed groups to oppose colonial power and ideals - Anibal Quijano: The idea of the analytical concept of the "coloniality of power" the modern colonial capatalist system of power

Julie A. Dowling

- Keyword white - books: Mexican Americans and the Question of Race (2014)

Mestizaje (keyword)

- Keywprd by Alicia Arrizona - Def: The process of mixing two distinct cultures (Spanish and indiginous American) Effect caused by colonialism (used in Central and South American) "A product of history formed by cultural encounters" - Not used in North America (closest word in North America is "metis") - "Mulatez" and " Mulataje" African and European mixing - Transculturation: - Mestizaje disguises blackness in homoginization process of racial mixing - Colonization in the Americas: Euopeans try to get rid of indiginous and African heritage to "purify" the new hispanic race - Blanqueamiento= whitening the race - Mejorar la raza= better the race (dilute African and indiginous charachteristics in Latin America) - Indiginous women given to colonial men as a gesture of kinship thus creating mixed race children - Colonial conquistadors also often raped indiginous women and had affairs with them consensual and not. Creating quick rise in mestizo people. postcolonial America mestizo people became the majority - Colonial period mestizo people poor, lower class in societu grouped with black and indiginous people - Jose Marti tried to empower the mestizaje race saying " Nuestra America Mestiza" to re claim the term - Jose Vasconcelos: "Cosmic Race" believed could create a superior race in Latin America and promited the idea that blackness would vanish and promoted "blanqueamiento" (whitening) - Gloria Anzaldua: "New mestiza consciousness" the idea of reclaiming the word to empower mixed race people brining to the forefront intersectionalities in people ie feminism etc

Hamaz Perez

- Main charachter in the documentary New Muslim Cool - Latino man was a drug dealer converts to Islam now works in inner city neighborhoods to spread Islam to struggeling youth

Theresa Delgadillo

- Program Director, Latina/o Studies; Professor, Department of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University, Columbus. - Is Chicana and is from Milwaukee, WI. - Books: Spiritual Mestizaje: Religion, Race, Gender, and Nation in Contemporary Chicana Narrative (2011) and Latina Lives in Milwaukee (2015) - keyword spirituality

La raza cósmica

- Published in 1925 - La raza cósmica (The Cosmic Race) - An essay written by Mexican philosopher, secretary of education, and 1929 presidential candidate José Vasconcelos to express the ideology of a future "fifth race" in the Americas; an agglomeration of all the races in the world with no respect to color or number to erect a new civilization: Universópolis - As he explains in his literary work, armies of people would then go forth around the world professing their knowledge. Vasconcelos continues to say that the people of the Iberian regions of the Americas (that is to say, the parts of the continent colonised by Portugal and Spain) have the territorial, racial, and spiritual factors necessary to initiate the "universal era of humanity"

Should Latinxs be considered a race?

- Should Latinas/os be counted as a "race" rather than a potentially white "ethnic" group? - concerns: 1. First, while Latinas/os are most often associated with a "brown" skin color, there are Latinas/os whose ancestry is primarily European, African, or Asian and who thus do not fit this image 2. Second, considering that some Latinas/os identify defensively as white, there have been concerns that making Latino a race might lead to an undercount as some would not check the box if it is a racial option because they are resisting the stigma attached to being defined as non-white.

Plan Espiritual de Aztlán

- Spiritual Plan of Aztlán - a pro-indigenist manifesto advocating Chicano nationalism and self-determination for Mexican Americans - adopted by the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference, a March 1969 convention hosted by Rodolfo Gonzales's Crusade for Justice in Denver, Colorado

LULAC

- The League of United Latin Americans Citizens ( - formed in Texas in 1929 - Organiation that wanted MEXICANS to be considered white - ULAC even successfully petitioned for having a "Mexican" race removed from the U.S. census in 1930, arguing against the racial classification of Mexicans as being separate from whites

Prof. Silvia Pedraza

- University of MichiganDepartments of Sociology and American Culture - book: Silvia Pedraza (2007) Political Disaffection in Cuba's Revolution and Exodus Lecture/Study: - Waves of the Cuban Exodus - 5 major waves of the Cuban exodus. - 1. Cuba's Elite, 2. the Petite Bourgeoisie, mostly white upper middle class 3. the Mariel Exodus (many young men, many black, came on boats) 4. Desperate balseros(came on anything they could, poor lower class, desperate,. mostly black) 5. Thru Central and South America(2014 Cubans travel to Ecuador and from there traverse Central America, on foot, through Mexico to the US. About 45,000 Cubans each year.)

Curtis Marez

- Wrote "Popular Culture" - Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego. - Former president of the American Studies Association. - Chicano - Books: Drug wars, and Farm worker Futurism

Nancy Kang

- Wrote "Race" keyword with Silvio Torres-Saillant - Assistant Professor of Women's and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba in Canada - She specializes in transnational, multi-ethnic, and diaspora women's literatures - Dr. Kang co-authored The Once and Future Muse: The Poetry and Poetics of Rhina P. Espaillat with Dr. Silvio Torres-Saillant

Climate for Latinx students at U of M 2018

- by Lorraine Gutierrez, Maira Areguin, Amanda Rodriguez-NewhallLatinx/Praxis LabNovember 26, 2018 - ●Campus climate is part of the "hidden curriculum. " The environment that students live and learn in. It has a big impact on learning and well being.●Latinx students are most likely to attend schools that are Hispanic Serving Institutions or in areas with large Latinx populations●Latinx students who attend Predominantly White Institutions (PWI) are at greater risk of experiencing a less supportive campus climate which can contribute to less successful academic experiences Sent to a random sample of 2,000 (from a total 2597) in Winter 2018

What It's Like Being A Latino Muslim In America

- by Rebekah Sager •Features César Dominguez, a 54-year-old Los Angeles-based Mexican-American who grew up in Tijuana, but returned to the state where was born as an adult. He is the imam of the nonprofit group La Asociación Latino Musulmana de América (LALMA), teaching weekly Quran and Islamic studies classes in Spanish at the Omar ibn Al-Khattab Mosque, located in downtown Los Angeles, near the University Southern California. •Also features Jaime "Mujihid" Fletcher, founder of Islam in Spanish Centro Islámico. Fletcher was born in Colombia, moved to Texas as a child, and converted to Islam in 2001. He founded Centro Islámico in Houston in January 2016. •Also features Lucy Silva, a volunteer at the Islamic Center of Santa Ana (ICSA) in California. She was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, moved to Santa Ana as a child, and converted to Islam 19 years ago after marrying her Lebanese-born husband. •There are 3.3 million Muslims in the United States, 6% of whom are Latino.

Spirituality (keyword)

- by Theresa Delgadillo

New Muslim Cool (Documentary Film)

- directed by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor Overview: follows the life of Hamza Perez, a Puerto Rican American Rap artist who converted to Islam after he decided to quit his life as a drug dealer. Hamza spends his time on the streets and jail cells spreading the message of Islam to at-risk youth and communities. The film also features the hip-hop group M-Team, a musical collaboration between Hamza and his brother Suliman Perez. The duo utilize the medium of hip-hop to spread their faith and religious message to other young people. In the midst of his journey to establish a new religious community and a new family in the North side of Pittsburgh, Hamza is forced to face the reality of being an active Muslim in a post 9/11 America when the community's Mosque gets raided by the FBI.

New Muslim Cool (film)

- directed by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor - New Muslim Cool is a 2009 documentary film directed and produced by Jennifer Maytorena Taylor. The film was initially released on POV (TV series) and follows the life of Hamza Perez, a Puerto Rican American Rap artist who converted to Islam after he decided to quit his life as a drug dealer. Hamza spends his time on the streets and jail cells spreading the message of Islam to at-risk youth and communities. The film also features the hip-hop group M-Team, a musical collaboration between Hamza and his brother Suliman Perez. The duo utilize the medium of hip-hop to spread their faith and religious message to other young people. In the midst of his journey to establish a new religious community and a new family in the North side of Pittsburgh, Hamza is forced to face the reality of being an active Muslim in a post 9/11 America when the community's Mosque gets raided by the FBI.

White (keyword)

- keyword by Julie A. Dowling - whitness has been a way to exclude certain groups from economic and political rights - ex: US citizens white men - During 60s-70s was black v white many people dont know history of Latino segregation in US, example Mexicans in southwest face similar laws being labled as blacks - ex: Mex and PR face housing restirtcions cant live in white neighborhoods in chicago - Latinos treated in and out of "white" legally seen as white socially seen as other Mexican civil right history: - Treaty of Guatelupe Hidalgo: US take Mexican land agree to make hispanics living there US citizens, fall back on their word Mexicans seen as not white endure history of discrimination - Early Latino (mexican) civil rights cases relied on Mexicans establishing themselves as white not other so they can have equal rights as white man - LULAC always used whitness to push forward with rights for mexicans and got mexican taken off US census in 1930 so latinos seen as white - early mexican civil rights tried to make them identify as white but later a switch in reclaiming indiginous and mexican herritage to right for civil rights by empowerment (Mestizo roots) - 1960s-70s call for "Brown Power" - United Farm workers, Raza Unida, told Mexicans to assert their racial identity and working class ststus to fight for economic and political recognition and power - Currently US census sees Latinos as a race and can choose ethnicity under this (ex Guatemalan) this is not true for Asian Americans - Latino understanding of whitness more complex than just skin color. Most Latinos identify with social, cultural and political identity rather than physical appearance abd biology of skin color. - Question: Should Latinos be counted as race or white "ethnic group"? - Latinos often associated with "brown skin" people but many Latinos identify more/ have more European, Asian or African ancestry - Julie A. Dowling believes: - We must make sure all known ethnicity and ancestry of Latinos are known and that we are under the umbrella of "brown" treated people and "racial others." The history and current status of Latinos being discriminated against makes it impossible for Latinos to be considered "white."

zafa

- let go, go away, banish - something you say to get Fuku to go away

Language (keyword)

-Keyword by John Nieto-Phillips Main points: - States/governments use language to marginalize minorities (system of power) - When Spain colonized central and south american countries used their form of spanish (castellano) as a way of power to control the indiginous people of the region. forced their language on the people also established spanish prescence in much of the world through language. Even now spanish taught in high schools and colleges. - Real Academia Española: want to purify and unify spanish as Castillian grammer only - Hispanism= study of spanish language and culture. still present even after colonies freed or Us takeover - Once hispanic people come to US now English the language of power to fully assimilate must drop spanish. Need to know english to be US citizen. - Example: US take puerto rico citizens rebel by refusing to speak english even though US try to Americanize island - LULAC: League of United Latin American citizens use English as primary language - Spanish symbol of ethnic identity and pride - Hard for immigrant children to be in school because need to learn english, bilingual seen as bad in school slowly shifting implementing bilingual programs - Nieto-Phillips believe " (knowing both languages) English and Spanish two instruments of global power."

"Puerto Rican Obituary" by Pedro Pietri

-Pedro Pietri was a Nuyorican poet and playwright and a founder of the Nuyorican Movement. He was the poet laureate of the Nuyorican Movement. - "Puerto Rican Obituary" poem that "sketched the lives of five Puerto Ricans who came to the United States with dreams that remained unfulfilled. By turns angry, heartbreaking and hopeful, it was embraced by young Puerto Ricans, who were imbued with a sense of pride and nationalism. (wrote poem)

Structure: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

-Plot is not linear; there are temporal jumps and shifts in narrative voice. •Readers have to identify who is speaking. •Characters evolve and grow as we learn more about them. Several of the characters are authors. •Transnational novel: plot is set in two countries and characters are constantly moving back and forth. •Chapters are identified with dates (years) .•The ending: "The beauty, the beauty!" echoes Joseph Conrad's "the horror, the horror" in Heart of Darkness(1899). Is this a hopeful note? Is that merited?

Mejorar la raza

-a common phrase used in Latin American countries, which means "improve the race" - In many Latin American countries blanquemiento (whitening) and "mejorar la raza" (improving the race) are accomplished by having children through interracial marriage, with the belief that this is socially desirable and advantageous - Many activists and intellectuals oppose this type of thinking and see it as a type of racism

History of the Dominican Republic in relation to Oscar Wao (long)

1492: Christopher Columbus irst sighted the island toward the end of his irst voyage to "the Indies." •1804: Upon defeaing the French, Dessalines and his followers established the independent naion of Haii on the western part of Hispaniola (Saint Domingue) .•1821: Spanish lieutenant governor José Núñez de Cáceres announced the colony's independence as the state of Spanish Haii. -Hundreds of thousands of Tainos living on the island were enslaved to work in gold mines. As a consequence of disease, forced labor, famine, and mass killings, by 1508, only 60,000 were sill alive. •In 1501, the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand I and Isabella, irst granted permission to the colonists of the Caribbean to import African slaves, who began arriving to the island in 1503. The irst enslaved blacks were purchased in Lisbon, Portugal. •Southern Spain and Portugal were muliethnic and muliracial regions long before the "discovery" of the New World, and many Africans, free and enslaved, paricipated in the Iberian Peninsula's conquest and colonizaion of the Americas.

End of: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar

Beli, Lola, and Yunior go down to the Dominican Republic to claim Oscar's body. He is brought home to be buried. Beli's cancer returns, and she will be dead within a year. Lola grieves for her mother, writing her a poem. Yunior reflects on the futility of his own efforts to bring some measure of comfort to the family. Lawyers are engaged to bring about justice, but it is fruitless. There is no cooperation from the Dominican government. Ybón continues with the life she has chosen. La Inca sells her house and moves back to her childhood home. Lola vows never to return to the Dominican Republic.

Racism

Belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Book: The Feast of the Goat Assassination of Trujillo.

Junot Diaz

Born in the Dominican Republic on December 31, 1968, and raised in New Jersey .•Author of the crically acclaimed Drown (1996); The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the Naional Book Criics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her (2012), a New York Times bestseller and Naional Book Award inalist. •He is the cofounder of Voices of Our Naion Workshop. - He atended Kean College in Union, New Jersey for one year before transferring and ulimately compleing his BA at Rutgers College in 1992, majoring in English - He earned his MFA from Cornell University in 1995, where he wrote most of his irst collecion of short stories. - Díaz is currently the icion editor at Boston Review

Haitians in the Dominican Republic

Citizenship being taken away from Haitians in Dominican Republic. In recent years, thousands have been pressured to leave voluntarily or have been forcibly deported, including documented cases of people of Haitian descent who were actually born in the Dominican Republic.

In The Time of the Butterflies

Julia Alvarez's 1994 novel on the murder of the Mirabal sisters in 1960.

Latino evangelism

Latino community in US moving from Catholicism to Evengelism and atheist

Curanderismo

Latino folk medicine, a form of holistic health care and healing. Traditional native healer.

Juan Gonalez on Language and Culture (Chapter 12 Harvest of Empire)

Main points: - Court case, judge threatens to end mother ability to see her daughter unless she stops speaking Spanish in the home and only speaks English - Nothing sparks more friction between black and white vs latinos than language conflict - Language battles have a history in US, African slaves lose language to slave holders, American indians lose language to colonizers, Latinos lose language in forced assimilation - When US occupy Puerto Rico try to foce people to only Speak English - Language can be site of rebellion against colonizers and oppressors - During 1920s-50s huge boom in Latino influences music, dance, and theater in popular culture. - Many white americans see bilingualism as a threat to US Anglo dominant culture

The Feast of the Goat

Mario Vargas Llosa's 2000 novel on the assassination of Trujillo.

Difference between religion and spirituality

Religon: the belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, especially a personal God or gods. Aspects of spirituality in religon. Spirituality: the quality of being concerned with the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things.

"Pa'lante" and Young Lords

Young lords used the phrase "Pa'lante" as a slogan to signify moving forward in society for Latino rights. Written on posters with puerto rican flag, men and guns. symbol of unafriad moving forward.

Transnational Novel: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar

immigration + culture class + cultural diffusion= transnational novel -The transnational novel must depict the crossing of borders, the exchange of ideas, the import and export of objects and much more. - The transnational novel must have some sort of cultural clash, even if it is as obvious as moving to a strange new country or the differences in social classes. Without a cultural clash, we won't have a search for identity. The transnational novel must encourages the reader to think about the identity of the characters and even objects in the storyline. - With immigration, the transnational novel brings to the reader a sense of "something new". Immigration is simply the movement of people from one area to another. This new area is exactly what it is referred to as "something new".

Trujillo Dictatorship (DR)

•Marked by repression of the SIM (Servicio de Inteligencia Militar): Military Intelligence Service •Nickname: El Jefe (The Boss), Chapita (litle medal), El Chivo (The Goat). -His 31 years in power, to Dominicans known as the Trujillo Era (Spanish: La Era de Trujillo), is considered one of the bloodiest eras ever in the Americas, as well as a ime of a classic personality cult, when monuments to Trujillo were in abundance

Characters: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (PII)

•Oscar de León: Main character •Maritza Chacón and Olga Polanco: When Oscar was, in elementary school. Marzita and Olga are Oscar's "golden age" girlfriends—he dates them during the years before he turned into a nerd. •Ana Obregón: Oscar meets Ana in an SAT prep class, of all places. She's Oscar's first real-life girl obsession. Oscar and Ana get close for a while, but then her ex-boyfriend Manny comes back from his stint in the army. By this point, Oscar is in way too deep with Ana. He even considers jumping Manny with his uncle's gun. na initiates Oscar into what will be a pattern for most of his (brief) life. He latches onto girls who don't return his affection. These girls usually go back to tough, abusive boyfrieds, or to guys who seem cooler than Oscar. Oscar's always getting Friend Zoned. •Lola de León: Oscar's older sister •Yunior: Same person as Oscar. •Hypaía Belicia Cabral (Beli): Oscar's mom •La Inca: Raises Beli in DR

Footnotes: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

•Use of footnotes: unusual in a novel, also written in particular style. Offer contextual/historical information but in a very particular way. •Provide important contextual information. •Novels typically do not have them. •Footnotes are more common in non-fiction writing and are more commonly written in an objective style. •Novel includes footnotes on Trujillo (1), JFK (2), J.R.R. Tolkien's character of Melkor (3), Porfirio Rubirosa (4), the meaning of the term "parigüayo" (5), being a reader/fanboy (6), the Mirabal sisters (7), María Montez (8), Balaguer (9), the comic book character Uatu The Watcher (10), Jesús de Galíndez (11), Rafael Yépez (12), Ramfis Trujillo (13), etc.