In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Jewish-Latino Literature

  • Introduction
  • General Sources on Jewish Latinx Literature
  • Interviews with Authors
  • Critical Works on Alcalá
  • Critical Works on Goldman
  • Critical Works on Days of Awe
  • Critical Works on Halfon
  • Critical Works on Perera
  • Critical Works on Stavans

Latino Studies Jewish-Latino Literature
by
Stephanie Pridgeon
  • LAST REVIEWED: 26 May 2023
  • LAST MODIFIED: 26 May 2023
  • DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199913701-0276

Introduction

Literature from Jewish and Latinx-identifying authors shows that Latinx ethnicities are constructed differentially throughout the Americas because of the complexities of ethnonational identities stemming from countries of origin. The overlapping—and oven conflicting—experiences of Jewish Latinxs as Jews and Latinxs are recurrent themes throughout this corpus of literary production as well as in the scholarly works that have discussed them. While still a somewhat niche topic within literary studies, a growing contingent of creative and scholarly writers has emerged to grapple with the place of Jewish Latinx fiction within existing critical understandings of US Jewish fiction, global Jewish fiction, Latin American fiction, and US Latinx fiction. While many of the authors outlined below have published other works, those included here have tended to focus on the intersections of Jewish and Latinx identities, including their characters’ and authors’ relationships to their ancestors’ or their own countries of origin in Latin America. While the category of “Latino” can be somewhat ambiguous, given the importance of diasporic experiences to the definitional understanding of the term, this bibliography takes account of literature that explores diasporic and borderland experiences from Jewish Latinx perspectives, including the works of Marjorie Agosín, Ruth Behar, Ilan Stavans, Francisco Goldman, Eduardo Halfon, Alicia (“Achy”) Obejas, and Kathleen Alcalá. However there are certainly other authors who were born in Latin American nations and lived for decades or more in the United States (among them, Jacobo Sefamí, Ariel Dorfman, David Unger, Sergio Chejfec, Marjorie Agosín, Leo Spitzer, and Nora Glickman) but whose works of fiction do not focus on the experiences of the Latin American diaspora in the United States in particular. The works in this article explore the intersecting conditions of Jewishness and latinidad.

Works of Literature

The authors included in these sections explore issues of sexuality (see Obejas 2008 in Works of Fiction by Achy Obejas and Alcalá 1998 in Fiction by Kathleen Alcalá); childhood perspectives on immigration and exile (see Behar 2017 and Behar 2022 in Works of Fiction by Ruth Behar and Halfon 2011 in Works of Fiction by Eduardo Halfon); Jewish Latinos’ particular relationship to state violence in Guatemala (see Agosín 2002 in Anthology, Goldman 1992 in Works of Fiction by Francisco Goldman, Perera 1986 in Memoir and Works of Fiction by Victor Perera, and Halfon 2011 in Works of Fiction by Eduardo Halfon); crypto-Jewish experiences (Obejas 2008 in Works of Fiction by Achy Obejas and Alcalá 1998 in Fiction by Kathleen Alcalá); and Jewish Latinos’ relationship to national politics in their respective countries of origin (see Obejas 2008 in Works of Fiction by Achy Obejas, Stavans 2007 in Memoir and Fiction by Ilan Stavans, Halfon 2011 in Works of Fiction by Eduardo Halfon, and Goldman 1992 in Works of Fiction by Francisco Goldman).

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