112th Annual Conference - Riverside Convention Center, California
Friday, October 31 - Sunday, November 2, 2014

This page is about the 2014 conference. For 2015 conference info, go to PAMLA 2015.

"A (Wo)Man in the Mirror": Immigrant Transitions I

Session Chair: 
Ljiljana Coklin, University of California, Santa Barbara
Time: 
Session 9: 9:00-10:30am
Location: 
RCC Meeting Room 6
Topic Area: 
"A (Wo)Man in the Mirror": Immigrant Transitions

Presenters/Papers:

  1. Un cubano sato; or a Cuban Mutt: 
    On the Cultural Dimensions of Ernest Hemingway’s Immigration to Cuba

    Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera, University of Puerto Rico
    The scholarly treatment of immigration in American Literatures often concerns the writings of newcomers to the US, but there is also a rich corpus of literature from emigrant Americans (that is, authors from the US who moved elsewhere). Ernest Hemingway is often labeled an “expatriate” but he did not intend to return to the US from Cuba (and did so under threat of violence), making him an immigrant to Cuba. This paper examines how Hemingway’s immersion in Cuban culture influenced the literary devices in his writing. 

  2. Over the Borderline: The Double Crossing of Nation and Gender at LA’s La Plaza Bar

    Katherine Steelman, California State University Long Beach
    LA’s oldest operating Latin@ gay bar, La Plaza, is a paradox –  at once frozen in time, and yet embodying physical and national transition. I interrogate the relationship between drag performance, transgender identity and migration as it manifests itself in the physical location of La Plaza through the scholarly works of Jose Muñoz and others, as well as through interviews with people who inhabit the space of La Plaza.

  3. Hollywood’s Chinatown: Traversing the Border and the Other Side

    Cara Busch, National Chengchi University, Taiwan
    Much has been written about the Othering of bodies and groups of people, but the Othering of places themselves has received little attention. This paper connects the research of real-world Chinatowns to its representations in American film and TV. When the borders of Chinatown on screen are breached by outsiders, visitors will find alien eatables, self-Orientalism, and violence. This border also delineates different generations of Chinese immigrants on either side.

  4. The Pleasures and Politics of Sexual Transgression in Contemporary U.S. Immigration Narratives

    Daniel Chaskes, LIM College
    This essay argues that sexual transgression in  contemporary U.S. immigration narratives represents a rejection of conventional assimilatory practices rooted in consumerism and class mobility.      
Session Cancelled: 
No