Invisible or inaudible? The representation of working-class immigrants in the short fiction of Junot Díaz | Intellect Skip to content
1981
More than Meets the Ear: Sound & Short Fiction
  • ISSN: 2043-0701
  • E-ISSN: 2043-071X

Abstract

In Junot Díaz’s short story collections, (1996) and (2012), sound plays a crucial role in the representation of the experiences of the Dominican migrants in the United States who populate their pages. The collections show the liminal situations which the stories’ characters face, emphasizing their shifting acoustic environments and the pressure to shape one’s own sonic identity to meet the demands of the new language and culture. The experiences of these Dominican migrants – particularly how they are targeted by the Americans they encounter because of their accents – reflect the politics of a cultural neo-racism which differs from the discourse of colonial Otherness but which bears the same monocultural logic. As such, the stories’ migrants become silenced rather than invisible. At the same time, a belief in the power of the Other’s personal and culturally specific voice as a transformative element is emphasized in these collections with Díaz’s use of Spanish and the narrator’s persistent presence throughout all of the stories.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Award PID2019-108754GB-100)
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00034_1
2021-06-01
2024-05-03
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Anzaldúa, Gloria. ( 1987), Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, San Francisco:: Aunt Lute;.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bal, Mieke. ( 1997), Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative (trans. C. Van Boheemen), Toronto, Buffalo, NY and London:: University of Toronto Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Balibar, Etienne. ( 1991;), ‘ Is there a “neo-racism?”. ’ (trans. C. Turner), in E. Balibar, and I. Wallerstein. (eds), Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, London and New York:: Verso;, pp. 1728.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bhabha, Homi K.. ( 1994), The Location of Culture, London and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Braun, Hans-Joachim. ( 2017;), ‘ An acoustic turn? Recent developments and future perspectives of sound studies. ’, Avant, VIII:1, pp. 7591.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Céspedes, Diógenes,, Torres-Saillant, Silvio, and Díaz, Junot. ( 2000;), ‘ Fiction is the poor man’s cinema. ’, Callaloo, 23:3, pp. 892907.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Díaz, Junot. ( 1996), Drown, London:: Faber and Faber;.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Díaz, Junot. ( 2012), This Is How You Lose Her, New York:: Riverhead Books;.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Gerke, Amanda. ( 2015;), ‘ Walking out on language: Verbal spaces in Junot Díaz’s “Invierno”. ’, Revista de Estudios Norteamericanos, 19:1, pp. 8397.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Gilroy, Paul. ( 2000), Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line, Cambridge, MA:: Harvard University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Kearney, Richard. ( 2006;), ‘ Introduction. ’, in P. Ricoeur. (ed.), On Translation, London and New York:: Routledge;, pp. viixx.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Laborde, Antonia. ( 2018;), ‘ Abused for speaking Spanish: “My Classmates Say my Language is Ugly”. ’, El País, 30 May, https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2018/05/30/inenglish/1527671538_960209.html. Accessed 19 May 2020.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Manzanas Calvo, Ana Mª, and Benito Sánchez, Jesús. ( 2017), Hospitality in American Literature and Culture: Spaces, Bodies, Borders, New York and London:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. McLeod, John. ( 2000), Beginning Postcolonialism, New York:: Manchester University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Mieszkowski, Sylvia,, Smith, Joy, and de Valck, Marijke. ( 2007;), ‘ Sonic interventions: An introduction. ’, in S. Mieszkowski,, J. Smith, and M. de Valck. (eds), Sonic Interventions, Amsterdam and New York:: Rodopi;, pp. 1127.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Pérez-Firmat, Gustavo. ( 1994), Life in the Hyphen: The Cuban-American Way, Austin, TX:: Texas University Press;.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Pratt, Mary Louise. ( 1981;), ‘ The long and the short of it. ’, Poetics, 10, pp. 17594.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Quesada, Sarah. ( 2016;), ‘ A planetary warning?: The multilayered Caribbean zombie in “Monstro”. ’, in M. Hanna,, J. Harford Vargas, and J. D. Saldívar. (eds), Junot Díaz and the Decolonial Imagination, Durham, NC:: Duke University Press;, pp. 291318.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Ricoeur, Paul. ( 2006), On Translation, London and New York:: Routledge;.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Schafer, Murray R.. ( 1977), The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World, Rochester, NY:: Destiny Books;.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Schweighauser, Philipp. ( 2015;), ‘ Literary acoustics. ’, in G. Rippl. (ed.), Handbook of Intermediality: Literature – Image – Sound – Music, Berlin:: De Gruyter;, pp. 47593.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Šesnić, Jelena. ( 2007), From Shadow to Presence: Representations of Ethnicity in Contemporary American Literature, Amsterdam and New York:: Rodopi;.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Smith, Jennifer J.. ( 2016;), ‘ Teaching the short-story cycle, teaching American literature. ’, Pedagogy, 16:2, pp. 20727.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Southworth, Michael. ( 1969;), ‘ The sonic environment of cities. ’, Environment and Behaviour, 1:1, pp. 4970.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Thomas, Piri. ( 1997), Down these Mean Streets, New York:: Vintage Books;.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Fernández Jiménez, Mónica. ( 2021;), ‘ Invisible or inaudible? The representation of working-class immigrants in the short fiction of Junot Díaz. ’, Short Fiction in Theory & Practice, 11:1&2, pp. 2738, https://doi.org/10.1386/fict_00034_1
    [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1386/fict_00034_1
Loading
  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): immigration; Junot Díaz; otherness; short story; silence; sound
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error