Postethnic Narrative Criticism: Magicorealism in Oscar 'Zeta' Acosta, Anna Castillo, Julie Dash, Hanif Kureishi, and Salman Rushdie

158 Pages·2003·0.72 MB·English

by  Frederick Luis Aldama

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A Postethnic Narrative Criticism
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Postethnic
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7  ‘‘’’ ,
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 ,
 ,
 , 
 
   
Austin

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Copyright©bytheUniversityofTexasPress
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75 Allrightsreserved
6 PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Firstedition,
Requestsforpermissiontoreproducematerialfromthiswork
shouldbesenttoPermissions,UniversityofTexasPress,P.O.
Box,Austin,TX-.
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requirementsof/.-()
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  
-- 
Aldama,FrederickLuis,date
Postethnicnarrativecriticism:magicorealisminOscar‘‘Zeta’’
Acosta,AnaCastillo,JulieDash,HanifKureishi,andSalman
Rushdie/FrederickLuisAldama.—sted.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
---(alk.paper)
.Americanfiction—thcentury—Historyandcriticism.
.Magicrealism(Literature) .Americanfiction—Minority
authors—Historyandcriticism. .Englishfiction—Minority
authors—Historyandcriticism. .Englishfiction—th
century—Historyandcriticism. .Ethnicgroupsin
literature. .Minoritiesinliterature. .Narration(Rhetoric)
I.Title.
. 
'.—dc


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InthememoryoffriendandmentorBarbaraChristian,
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andmymuchlovedmadrinaLindaVanCamp
...allofwhomdiedofcancer

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M Contents
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Preface ix
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Acknowledgments xiii
 RethreadingtheMagicalRealistDebate 
  RebelliousAestheticActs 
  Dash’sandKureishi’sRebelliousMagicoreels 
  Oscar‘‘Zeta’’Acosta’sDe-formedAuto-bio-graphé 
  AnaCastillo’s(En)GenderedMagicorealism 
  SalmanRushdie’sFourthspaceNarrativeRe-conquistas 
 MappingthePostethnicCriticalMethod 
Notes 
WorksCited 
Index 

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ThisstudyofcontemporaryU.S.multiethnicandBritishwritersandmovie
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7 directors who employ magicorealism to tell stories is more than a study
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ofhowlanguage,style,andform—innovels,autobiographies,andfilm—
worktorepresenttheunrepresentable.Itisacelebrationofthecomingof
ageofcertainwritersanddirectorswhorevitalizedandreformedastory-
tellingmodebyplayfullyinventingworldspopulatedwithraciallymixed
up and culturally hybrid characters that spoke deeply to the experiences
and identities of people like myself. However, coming into contact with
contemporary magicorealist works by Oscar ‘‘Zeta’’ Acosta, Ana Castillo,
JulieDash,HanifKureishi,andSalmanRushdie,tonameonlythoseIstudy
in the following pages, did not constitute just a reflection on and an af-
firmation of my personal ‘‘impure’’ identity, but more deeply, it was an
enduring acquaintance with a variety of postdiasporic identities and ex-
periences.Intheearlyswhensuchpostdiasporicwritersanddirectors
juxtaposed the ‘‘real’’ with the ‘‘unreal’’ to imagine the identities formed
out of a living-here-belonging-elsewhere phenomenon, I was sent away
frommyhomeinCalifornia’snorth-centralvalleytolivewithmyAnglo
madrinainLondon.Thestoryofmydislocationiscomplicated,involving
mostofthose‘‘isms’’(racism,sexism,andsoon)thatcontroland/orerase
theethnoracialsubject.Mymother,havinglostherjobandgoneonSocial
Security,feltshehadnochoicebuttoreduceherhousehold.Iarrivedin
aninner-cityLondonfilledtothebrimwithMarmite-eatingxenophobes.
JourneyingfarfrommyMexican/Guatemalan-Americanfamily,Icar-
riedwithmeasuitcaseofnarrativesofU.S.ethnosocialdynamics.Already
at our California elementary school, my older, lighter-skinned brother
(whose blond locks had made him especially popular among our casta-

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