(In)visibility, Trauma, and Memory in the Black Hispanic Experience: Black Female Bodies in Loida Maritza Pérez‘s Geographies of Home

Abstract

In this essay, the author argues that Loida Maritza Pérez uncovers how Afro-Dominican women‘s struggles become aggravated in the diaspora, by drawing attention on the invisibility, ambiguity, and vulnerability of the main characters‘ bodies. The body becomes a recurrent metaphor throughout the novel, a geographical map on which Pérez delineates the imprint that violence leaves on these Afro-Latina immigrants. The family may have escaped the violence and economic difficulties prevalent in Trujillo‘s regime. However, their new home in New York City does not provide them with the safe and luxurious environment they have dreamed of. Violence continues to bleed into the characters‘ lives, exposing the lingering consequences of trauma and need to reconcile the present with the past.