CONTEMPORARY CARIBBEAN-AMERICAN LITERATURE: IDENTITY STRUGGLE FOR CARIBBEAN DIASPORIC SUBJECTS IN AMERICAN RACIAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

This study includes six contemporary literary texts (novels and short stories) that offer exemplary representations of identification process of the Caribbean diaspora situated within American context. The texts included in this study are: Disposable People by Ezekel Alan (2012), Now Lila Knows by Elizabeth Nunez (2022), Brother, I’M Dying by Edwidge Danticat (2007), “Cheap, Fast, Filling” in Ayiti by Roxane Gay (2011), Dominicana by Angie Cruz (2019), and “Light-Skinned Girls and Kelly Rowlands” in How to Love a Jamaican by Alexia Arthurs (2018). By studying representations of identity formation throughout the Caribbean-American literature, a postcolonial analysis integrated with cultural studies such as critical race theory, decolonial approach, and diaspora studies leads to a discovery of differences in identity processes for Caribbean subjects in America based on personal and temporal experiences. Identity formation for Caribbean subjects show a level of struggle that is informed by alienation, critical emotions such as hate, fear, melancholic self, confusion over racial identity, liminality, lack of empowerment, hybridization, race-consciousness, and double subordination. Through contemporary narratives – many considered realist in style– the authors offer representations of individuals taking on the process of identity negotiation while inscribing the characters of the expatriates, migrants, and immigrants as confused, weak, alienated, and passive. Through the act of literary production, Caribbean diasporic identity illustrates the potential values of literary studies in developing critical awareness for the United States and hemispheric racial politics. Literature that deals with the identity struggle in America about diaspora is an important component to cultural studies, research about immigration, and race theory.